Page 14: of Marine News Magazine (August 2023)

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Insights propulsion technology, the propellers more ef? cient and Over the course of your career, as you look back, is coatings and everything that goes along with that. there a project that sticks out to you as being most

There is a challenge to keep up with the rapid pace of memorable or interesting?

change but also an opportunity. The biggest challenge in That’s a hard question for me because I’ve been doing that is helping regulatory, and especially the U.S. Coast this for so long. I can think back to each phase of my career

Guard, keep up with that change. and think of some really interesting and cool projects that

The Coast Guard has limited resources, both funding were really awesome at the time and I re? ect on fondly, and personnel. They have been exceptional in working with and they’re all very different. us on our new and alternative projects of every kind. But I am especially proud of the work that we have done they have a job to do and a mission, and they can’t just say, with Alaska on developing, designing, and building ? ve oil “Oh, that sounds cool, let’s give it a go and try it.” We have spill recovery barges. Gunderson built four, and one was to prove to them that the new technology and systems are built by Bollinger in the Gulf Coast. They’re some of the still safe and still appropriate. That they are reliable in a largest in the world, and they are the only purpose-built, variety of sea states, environment and working conditions. dedicated ABS-certi? ed spill recovery barges in operation,

How do we help them become comfortable with and un- or actually ever in the history of the United States.

derstand these new technologies, and equally as important, They’re giant barges with a very dedicated purpose. how do we help them get there quickly to support the time- And even though it’s a basic barge hull, it was very inter- line that commerce needs to introduce these ideas and meet esting to work through all of the logistics and operational

IMO’s goals and meet all of the other goals and aspirations requirements for making the barges actually go and col- of the different ports and the different world organizations? lect oil out of the water and avert or mitigate an envi- ronmental disaster. Which is very opposite of the work

I’ve done in my career, which I’m also very fond of, while designing double skin oil carriers. It was neat to take all that knowledge I’ve gained over 10, 15 years of developing those designs, and then rethink all of that to say, “How do we go the opposite direction? How do we take oil out of the water and manage in?”

Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

One message I really want to keep presenting to our industry is that Elliott Bay Design Group is working hard to be a leader in the realm of decarbonization and emis- sions reduction.

We are working to stay current on all of the latest tech- nologies and different options—battery, alternative fuels, all of it! We are not a one trick pony in any way with re- gard to any particular technology or vessel type. That will be a primary focus of our organization going forward, to be an industry advocate and advisor for our industry as a whole. We want to stay independent and not dedicated to any one technology. We want to help our customers pick the right options and technologies and right vendors for their particular need.

Elliott Bay Design Group 14 | MN August 2023