Page 17: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (January 2021)

dreds of dollars.

But, he didn’t have enough money to go back to his home in Scotland; otherwise I think he may have, and I probably wouldn’t be here. Just surviving in business through those early years is a notable achievement. The 1960s were really formative period in the history of our company, and my fa- ther was really running the business by the early 60s. It was a transformative time here in British Columbia, where, with the bene? t of a fairly signi? cant national shipbuilding sub- sidy, owners were replacing their old wooden tug ? eets with more modern diesel powered steel tugs and building new and innovative types of barges. Our entire coastal economy is run on tug and barge, most of that was developed in the 60s, and my father designed 80-85% of it. There were self- loading, self-dumping log barges developed in this of? ce; and the ? rst widespread use of Kort nozzles in North Amer- ica were developed here. We did the ? rst icebreaking supply vessels for work in the Beaufort Sea … the list goes on and on. That laid the foundation for the kind of business we are.

When I took over the business from my father in the 1990s, I had (mostly) ruled out Europe and Asia because there was a lot of competition in our ? eld, and we didn’t really have the means to penetrate that market.

Then, out of the blue, we made a connection with owners and ship yards in Turkey, a relationship that was good for them, and it was good for us and our business just mush- roomed as a consequence. This gave us a foothold with user clients in Europe and with these amazing shipyards in Tur- key and that has transformed our business a hundred fold over what it was before.

But ultimately, at the end of the day, the thing I think of which I am most proud is how we made the transition from this being a single family owned company to an employ- ee owned company under ? rst Ken Hartford’s direction, and now under Mike’s direction. To be able to move the company over to the ownership of the people with whom I have worked is absolutely fantastic. And it worked out im- mensely well for me personally, for our whole family, and

I think I’m sure Mike would echo this, that it’s worked out extremely well for all the new shareholders in the company.

So that’s been the icing on the cake for me.

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MR #1 (1-17).indd 17 1/8/2021 3:55:12 PM