Page 13: of Marine News Magazine (November 2023)

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Insights business is building tugboats for customers throughout the U.S., this can sometimes mean coming up with new ways to solve challenges bound to arise in the shipbuild- ing industry.

The yard is situated in what Manning described as “an odd location for building boats”, nestled between a road and the Columbia River, with a relatively small amount of land to work with. “As far as I know, we’re the only shipyard in the country that actually assembles a boat on a drydock,” Manning said. “And throughout our history, there has been a lot of good one-off examples of ? ghting through challenges, ? guring out whatever we have to do to deliver for our customer.”

When DMI was contracted to build its ? rst tractor tug–Wynema Spirit, delivered to Brusco Tug & Barge in 2000—the shipyard didn’t have a drydock, so it built the vessel on a barge. Once completed, both the new tug and the barge were transferred onto a large drydock, and DMI cut holes in the barge in order to sink it with the drydock to ? oat the new vessel.

“To me, that serves as a testament,” Manning said. “If we have an opportunity to perform for a customer, we will do whatever it takes to overcome any challenges.”

As president & COO, Manning leads business develop- ment for DMI as well as day-to-day operations and yard improvement strategies. “We’ve been investing a lot in new

Diversi ed Marine, Inc.

systems and processes to move our company and bring it up he ? rst day I walked in a shipyard I knew to speed with modern technology.” he said. “Among my top that I was in the right industry for me,” priorities right now is developing our processes internally to

Manning said. “DMI has always been a be more organized. Lately, we’ve had issues with lead times relationship-based business. All of our and price increases, so we’re making sure we have systems “T customers are close friends, and we have to purchase parts at the right times in the project. We’ve re- relationships that are second to none,” he said. “Know- vamped our inventory and receiving processes as well as our ing the crew, the people that operate the boat, and getting QA/QC (quality assurance and quality control) processes.” feedback to try to develop a better product, this was all At the end of October, DMI performed sea trials for Ar- super attractive to me.” temis, a new Robert Allan Ltd. RApport 2500 tug for Br-

Manning said his attention to the relationships side of usco, to be chartered by Crowley. It is also currently build- the business is a pillar to his leadership philosophy. “One ing two Robert Allan Ltd. RAscal 2000s for Brusco. “I’m thing that stuck out to me early on with [DMI CEO] Kurt really excited about that model. It’s a 65-footer that should

Redd—and learning from Kurt was key—his father, Earl, be a 45- to 50-ton-bollard-pull boat,” said Manning, who had always told him relationships are the most important is also heavily involved in design and engineering.

thing. And the way you maintain those is to do what you With new tests and ratings coming out for the Caterpil- say you’re going to do.” lar C32, Manning said he’s hopeful to get a 60-ton boat

For Manning and the team at DMI, whose primary in a 65-foot hull. “It’s two thirds of the cost of the bigger www.marinelink.com MN 13|