Page 36: of Marine News Magazine (February 2017)

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EQUIPMENT

DSC Dredge Digs In

The world of dredging is de? ned by the vast diversity of each assignment that contrac- tors perform on any given day. Fortunately, DSC’s standard line-up of dredge equip- ment can be modi? ed and customized to meet just about any job that needs doing.

By Joseph Keefe t wasn’t too long ago that (retired) U.S. Coast Guard 1980s, the company went through a liquidation bankrupt-

ADM Jim Loy told me, “If you’ve seen one port, well, cy. Prior to the liquidation, a friend/investor (Bob Dagley) you’ve seen one port.” That now-famous declaration was of Thomas Wetta opened a company named Dredging

I made in reference to port security in a post-9/11 world, Supply Company. The function of this company was to but the quip is as valid now as it was when he said it during take over the business model of KMM through hiring a his tenure as Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. Simi- majority of the workforce and by obtaining knowledge of larly, it can also be said that if you’ve seen one dredging dredge manufacturing through the employees. The verbal operation, well, then you’ve seen one dredging operation. agreement was that once the company was up and run-

Port-to-port, coast-to-coast, on inland rivers, Great Lakes, ning, the Wetta family would purchase the company back. for environmental remediation, during storm restoration An entire article could be written on how all that came operations and everything in between, no two dredging about, and how Bob Wetta ended up where he is today. assignments are exactly alike. Dredging Supply would one day end up back under

Wetta ownership, a corporation with the name of Dredg-

From the Bottom Up ing Specialties, Inc. Dredging Specialties had minor opera-

No one knows that metric better than DSC Dredge tions/sales under it from 1992 to 1994, but the majority

President/CEO Bob Wetta, who weighed in with Marine- of revenues came from Dredging Supply Company. Fast

News in January. In the beginning, it was Thomas J. Wetta, forward to 1994, and Dredging Specialties dropped its

III (father of Bob & Bill Wetta) who was principal in a name and took over the name Dredging Supply Co., Inc. now dissolved entity named Kenner Marine & Machin- Through merger of several related companies together over ery (KMM), incorporated in the early 1970s. In the late those years, DSC Dredge, LLC was of