June 15, 1976 - Maritime Reporter and Engineering News

NDTA Honors Tom Crowley

Thomas B. Crowley, board chairman and president of Crowley Maritime Corporation, has been named "Transportation Man of the Year" by the San Francisco Bay Area Chapter of the National Defense Transportation Association (NDTA). This honor is bestowed annually on the person who has contributed the most to the transportation industry. Presentation of the silver bowl, emblematic of this prestigious award, was made at a special ceremony held at the Presidio of San Francisco, on National Defense Transportation Day, May 21.

The committee that selected Mr. Crowley as the person best qualified and most deserving of the title of "Transportation Man of the Year" was headed by Vice Adm. J.J.

McClelland, Commander, 12th U.S. Coast Guard District, and included Major Gen.

Thomas A. Aldrich, Commander, Twenty- Second Air Force, Marine Air Corps; Brigadier Gen. O.C. Metheny, Commanding Officer, Military Traffic Management Command, Western Area, and Capt. C.L. Culwell, Commanding Officer, Naval Supply Center, Oakland, Calif.

In making the presentation, J. Monroe Sullivan, NDTA president, said: "Tom Crowley has long been recognized as an outstanding leader in the transportation industry.

He has demonstrated in dramatic fashion the importance of tugs, barges, and other shallow-draft floating equipment. It was Mr.

Crowley who pioneered the transportation of bulk petroleum by barge in the coastwise service. He also directed the first commercial resupply of Distant Early Warning stations on the Arctic Coast of Alaska and throughout the Aleutian Chain, some of the most isolated and inaccessible, but highly essential, military installations in the world." The NDTA president went on to cite Mr.

Crowley for his introduction of the Hydro- Train, a direct intermodal rail-water-rail service between the "Lower 48" and Alaska, which has revolutionized transportation in the Alaska trade and provided a great assist to the military in maintaining and operating important bases in the great northern state.

Crowley vessels were the first to make delivery by water of essential supplies and equipment to oil company crews at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic North Slope of Alaska, site of one of the greatest oil discoveries ever made on the North American Continent.

In 1970, the northern leg of the Trans- Alaska oil pipeline, some 170 miles of 48- inch-diameter pipe, was included in the cargo transported on a historic voyage that included 80 tugs and barges in the convoy to the North Slope.

In recognition of his significant contributions to improvement of the nation's defense transportation, Mr. Crowley, in 1970, was selected by the Secretary of Defense to receive the highly coveted National Transportation Award.

Other stories from June 15, 1976 issue

Content

Maritime Reporter

First published in 1881 Maritime Reporter is the world's largest audited circulation publication serving the global maritime industry.