Page 29: of Marine News Magazine (March 2011)

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Training on

Z-Drives with Jeff Slesinger early on Jeff realized he wanted to run tugs. “In my early 20s I started accumulating sea time in order to get my license.” He started gathering time on fishing vessels. “Once I got enough I sat for my license and got my first official tug boat job in 1980.” “When I came into the towing industry I’d already oper- ated other vessels as a captain, although not any towing vessels. I spent about the first couple months as the mate.

Then the captain I was with needed to go ashore to take care of his family. We had developed a very close relation- ship and he thought I had what it took to be a captain, so he recommended me and I slid into his job in relatively short order.” “I was a full-time captain from 1980 through about 1998 and at that point I started to transition and assume more duties ashore, training people, managing day to day operations and that sort of thing.” “I ended up training some of the captains here at

Western Towboat as well as some captains and mates out- side of Western Towboat. Early in 2005 I began an associ- ation with the Pacific Maritime Institute which has been very good for me and I hope very good for them. I’ve been doing some customized training projects for them specifi- cally oriented to operating tugs.” “Delphi Maritime is my own company. Its basic focus is two things. One is the training side of things, developing onboard and shore-side training programs for tugs, and the other is a marine surveying and audit business. The training is very specific to boat handling, barge handling and watchstanding on tugs.”