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Foss Maritime, founded by the matri- arch of the Foss family in 1889, is as much a cultural icon on the U.S. West Coast as McAllister or Moran are on theEast Coast. Norwegian immigrant Thea Foss began the business when she bought her first row boat in Tacoma, Wash. and painted it the signature green and white.The Foss family grew the business into a launch service ferrying crew and sup- plies in the 1910s, then shifted into tow- ing work in the 1940s. Thea Foss is considered the inspiration for Tug Boat Annie, a series of fictional stories by Norman Reilly Raine pub-lished in the Saturday Evening Post. The company?s own tug, the Arthur Foss, starred in Tug Boat Annie, the motion picture, in 1933. Schools and waterways in the Seattle/Tacoma area have been named after the Foss family, honoring the impact the business has had on the broader community. Both Foss family members and vessels played a role in the Second World War, including Henry Foss, a Navy Captain and son to Thea Foss. Henry?s son, Drew Foss was a crew member aboard the tug Justine Foss which was sent to work in the Hawaiian Islands during the war. Drew Foss became a prisoner of war after the tug was taken by the Japanese fol- lowing the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the capture of Wake Island. In 1969 the family business was sold to a parent company, but Foss family mem- bers remained involved in the company leadership until several years ago. In 1987 Foss was again sold, this time to Saltchuk Resources, Inc., which remainsFoss? holding company today. Through- out, Foss has maintained its original green and white colors and the philoso-phy of innovation that has kept it one step ahead of the market for the last 122 years. Foss Maritime?s current President and CEO, Gary Faber, is a graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y. ?It was one thing for the com- pany to remain focused on its values while the members of the Foss family were running the company,? he said. ?Now, when there are no Foss family members involved in the company, it takes a special commitment from the en- tire leadership team and each of our em-ployees to keep the company?s focus on people and the community, and on pro- viding responsive ?always ready? serv- ice.? No where is Foss Maritime?s innovative spirit and commitment to communitymore apparent then in its environmental initiatives, including it?s hybrid harbor craft program, its early switch to ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and its business- wide sustainability goals.THE FOSS HYBRID APPROACH Foss? commitment to the environment sets the company apart, Faber said. ?Now and in the future, we believe the compa- nies best positioned to compete for work will be those with the best environmental and safety records.? ?I am proud of the hybrid technology we have developed and the fact that we are now in the final stages of developing our second hybrid tug, which is a con- version of a conventional tug to hybrid power.? Foss? second hybrid, the Camp- bell, is undergoing a hybrid retrofit at the company?s Rainier Shipyard in Rainier, Ore. The Campbell is headed for the Port of Los Angeles/Long Beach, where the first Foss hybrid harbor tug, the Carolyn Dorothy, is also home-ported. The Carolyn Dorothy is a Dolphin class tug and was built as a hybrid ?out of the box,? Faber said. As the pilot hybrid, she was built from scratch, but Foss has nine other conventional Dolphin class tugs, in- November 2011www.marinelink.com 47MR Nov.11 # 6 (42-49):MR Template 10/28/2011 12:21 PM Page 47