Page 50: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (May 2, 2010)

50 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News

NEWS PEOPLE & COMPANIES

Seroka Named New APL

President, Americas

APL named Gene Seroka its new Pres- ident in the Americas. Seroka, a 21-year- veteran of the company, replaces John

Bowe who is leaving in June. Until re- cently the Regional Vice President for the

Middle East, Seroka will relocate to the company’s regional headquarters in

Phoenix, Arizona. He’ll be responsible for all of the shipping, intermodal trans- portation and terminal activities of APL.

NAVSEA Employees Recognized

Four Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) employees were recognized for engineering excellence by the Amer- ican Society of Naval Engineers (ASNE) at the society’s conference in Arlington,

Va. NAVSEA’s Capt. Albert Grecco,

Craig Brandenburg, Stephen Michetti, and Christopher C. Bassler received awards for their accomplishments.

NAVSEA develops, delivers and main- tains ships and systems on time and on cost for the United States Navy.

Volpenhein to Lead Samson in Asia

Samson promoted Kris Volpenhein to

Asia Technical Sales Manager. Effective

September 1, 2010 Volpenhein will pro- vide focused technical and sales efforts to support Samson’s offshore and com- mercial marine markets throughout Asia.

Volpenhein has been part of the Samson research and development department for the last four years as both an application engineer and technical manager. Volpen- hein has a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the Uni- versity of Cincinnati.

Chemoil Appoints Valenzuela

Chemoil appointed Veronica Valen- zuela as Managing Director of one of its operating subsidiaries, Chemoil Latin

America Inc. Valenzuela joined Chemoil in 2009 and has more than 30 years of in- dustry experience, including seven years as the general manager of Chevron’s op- erations in Panama.

Willard Marine Expands on East Coast

Willard Marine announced plans for an expansion site in Virginia Beach, VA. The new facility is located in the Oceana

South Industrial Park near the Oceana

Naval Air Station and is scheduled to open in May 2010. The 13,000 sq. ft. fa- cility will serve as Willard’s primary East

Coast manufacturing and reconditioning center. Willard Marine will manufacture and assemble its 16 to 43 ft. line of alu- minum and fiberglass composite spe- cialty boats designed for the U.S. Navy,

U.S. Coast Guard, Homeland Security and both Domestic and International Law

Enforcement Agencies.

Star Bulk Orders a Ship

Star Bulk Carriers Corp. signed a con- tract with Hanjin Heavy to build a second

Capesize vessel (180,000 dwt), a sister- ship to the first vessel ordered, with ex- pected delivery in November 2011.

Marinette Marine Wins More

Coast Guard RB-Ms

Marinette Marine has been awarded an additional 30 Response Boats – Medium (RB-Ms) by the U.S. Coast Guard. With an approximate value of $63.6m, the new boats are part of a multi-year, Coast

Guard contract requiring the construction and delivery of up to 250 RB-Ms at a total contract value of up to $600m.

NAT Increases Fleet to 20

Nordic American Tanker Shipping

Limited (NAT) entered into a preliminary agreement with Samsung Heavy Indus- tries to build two 158,000-dwt suezmax tankers to be delivered to the company in the third and fourth quarters of 2011. The purchase prices of the two newbuilding vessels are $64.5/$65m, with about half to be paid on the signature of the defini- tive contracts and the balance to be paid on delivery.

WRSystems: Helping Navy with Systems Upgrades

WRSystems provides a range of sys- tem technologies and upgrades to address the Navy’s priority to keep the fleet at the highest operational level by avoiding any potential obsolescence issues. Products and services include a depth reporting system developed and produced by

WRSystems and the Department of the

Navy, which was partially funded through the Secretary of Defenses’ Ac- quisition Challenge program. The Digi- tal Depth Detection (D3) system is a technology upgrade for an older system, which is becoming increasingly hard to support. WRSystems is also producing speed indicator transmitter systems and small combatant craft integrated bridge systems for the Navy. In addition to these systems, the firm has recently launched a new commercial maritime green venture,

Emsys, a continuous stack emissions monitoring system. “We are committed to providing our customers the most ad-

Mazloum to Head

Crystal Fleet Ops

Crystal Cruises’ President Gregg

Michel announced the promotion of

Thomas Mazloum to senior vice president, operations.

Mazloum, who has served as Crys- tal’s senior vice president, hotel op- erations, since 2003 assumed the responsibilities for the fleet’s marine operations with the March 31, 2010 retirement of Joe Valenti, Crystal’s senior vice president, marine opera- tions.

The Austrian-born Mazloum began his cruise industry career at Crystal

Cruises with the 1990 launch of the line’s first ship, Crystal Harmony, in

Nagasaki, Japan. In the following nine years, he was rapidly promoted to various food and beverage, land programs and hotel operations posi- tions within Crystal. At age 29, he became the line’s youngest-ever hotel director. Mazloum left Crystal in 1999 to be part of the inaugural team and serve as hotel director for Disney

Cruise Line’s Disney Wonder eventu- ally leading to the position general manager for Epcot at Walt Disney

World.

Mazloum returned to Crystal

Cruises in 2002 as vice president, hotel operations and was promoted to senior vice president within a year, prior to the launch of Crystal Seren- ity.

Sherwin-Williams Chosen to Coat “Mighty Mo”

Nearly 5,500 gallons of Sherwin-Williams coatings have been applied to the historic

Battleship Missouri, which recently returned to her home pier near the U.S.S. Arizona

Memorial at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

The ex-USS Missouri, or “Mighty Mo,” is known as the site of Japan’s unconditional surrender to Allied Forces on September 2, 1945, ending World War II. The ship was launched in June 1944 and provided firepower in the decisive battles for Iwo Jima and

Okinawa. On Sept. 2, 1945 – 65 years ago this summer – the Missouri served as the site of Japan’s formal, unconditional surrender to Allied Powers while anchored in Tokyo

Bay, Japan. The famous ship also saw action in the Korean Conflict and Persian Gulf during Operation Desert Storm. Today, the ship is under the care of the non-profit USS

Missouri Memorial Association, which owns and operates the ship as the Battleship Mis- souri Memorial, a historic attraction and memorial in Pearl Harbor. Work on the $18 mil- lion refurbishment began in October under the guidance of BAE Systems at the U.S.

Navy’s Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard. The superstructure was pressure washed by me- morial volunteers. BAE Systems and its subcontractors used power tools to remove re- maining paint, spot-primed bare steel, airless-sprayed the ship’s superstructure and freeboard, and plural component-sprayed the underwater hull. Several Sherwin-Williams products are being used to protect the 887 ft. battleship.