Page 17: of Marine News Magazine (May 2025)

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Q&A say, engineer out hazards. When you build a new vessel, ous laws in various countries, you can’t get in to. Do I want take into account things from a safety standpoint to make to sell real estate in England? Sure, why not? Well, guess the vessel safer for your employees to then go out and do a what? I can’t just go sell real estate in England, it doesn’t good job. Our number one core value is taking care of peo- work that way. ple; that’s what we do. Whether it’s our people, whether it’s And the good news is for Jones Act supporters, it is sup- our subcontractors, that’s what we do. ported on both sides of the aisle in Congress. You know

That was really a shift and we had a lot of old-schoolers why? Because dredging and infrastructure is agnostic to who were not wild about the changes. A lot of people are party. We need dredging so that our ships can come in used to what they call ‘safety cops’; you’re doing something fully loaded, lower those costs of goods, and we need US bad, buckle that buckle, or put on your safety glasses, etc. entities to do that work, to do that dredging so that our

We have the same problems today in safety that we had harbors are safe.

previously, it’s hands, it’s eyes, it’s access and egress, it slips, trips and falls. But I can speak for Manson, our level of Jones Act aside, what do you count as the severity and frequency has gone down exponentially. number one challenge to running an ef? cient, pro? table marine construction and dredging

Can you put in perspective the importance of business in the US today?

the Jones Act to your operation with insights Well, I’d say it’s two things. One which I already alluded on any threats that you see to the Jones Act to was the people. It’s really the people that makes it hap- currently today? pen, it’s our employees. They are the ones that bring it

All of our equipment is US-built, US-? agged and US- home, they are the ones that make the operations success- crewed. It costs more money to do it that way. If we could ful. Thankfully, Manson has a lot of extremely smart peo- have built our new hopper dredge in South Korea, we ple that do a fantastic job. The second part of that answer probably could have built it in half the time and for two- is we don’t want to get too big for our britches in terms of thirds the cost. But that’s not the law, the law is the Jones projects that we take on. Bonding is a very important part

Act and we abide by the law. That’s paramount to what we of being a US dredger and contractor and we happen to be do. There have been instances over the years where some in an excellent position. So, we could bond a billion dol- competitors have tried to bring in some non-Jones Act lars of projects. We don’t want to get overextended. One compliant equipment and they’ve asked for waivers and thing about being an English major and not an engineer so, as best we could, we have tried to ? ght those waivers is sometimes we fall in love with something because it’s and 99% of those have not gotten through. really cool and we ? gure out how to do it, but is it really

For us, it’s about an even playing ? eld; if it’s going to something we should be doing commercially. Just because cost me X dollars per day for a US shipyard, then I want something’s really cool and you have the capability to do my competitor to have that same cost. I like to say, look, it, is it something where you can earn a dollar? Manson is you can demand that I have a goat on the deck of a dredge 120 years old; we want to be around in another 120 years. as a requirement, so long as my competitor has to have a So part of our culture is we want to be making decisions goat on the deck of their dredge, I’m okay, that’s ? ne, just that are longer-term, which is why we’re building a $200 be consistent. As Trent Lott once said, “I can sum up the million plus, 15,000 cubic yard hopper dredge.

Jones Act in one word: ‘patriotism.’” Don’t get too enamored with your own re? ection in the

Other countries have cabotage laws, it just so happens mirror and just, as I like to say, stick to our knitting. We that in the US we refer to the Jones Act, a collection of laws. need to stick to our knitting and not worry about what

You have the Dredge Act which is part of the Jones Act, you other folks are doing, it’s not a race, it’s not a competition. have the Passenger Services Vessel Act, they all intertwine. I don’t care about revenue one iota; I want to be pro? table

So there are markets around the world that, due to vari- and I want to be safe.

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