Page 21: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (November 2024)

LAURIE BALAN, COO, GENOA DESIGN INTERNATIONAL formance of the company. That includes everything, from

Can you give us a personal and professional customer delivery where make sure that we execute quality history with insights on your responsibili- products with constant schedule certainty, to market and busi- ties today at Genoa Design International?

I’ve spent the majority of my career, over 20 years now, in ness development, communications, human resources and tal- shipbuilding, primarily in Canada. That’s where we’ve seen ent development. I really get to touch the entire organization, a signi? cant resurgence of ship design and shipbuilding over which I absolutely love. I also get to work really closely with a pretty tight executive team as well as our board of directors the last couple of decades. I graduated from Memorial Univer- sity in Newfoundland & Labrador as a mechanical engineer, to develop the strategy for the company. At a time when geo- and I thought at the time I was going to spend my career in political pressures are putting a lot of pressure on the industry, the offshore oil and gas industry because it was booming at it’s an exciting time to be here and to be the COO of a com- pany that is thriving and innovative.

the time. After a short stint overseas, I returned to the Atlantic provinces and was introduced to the working world of naval

Can you give us a ‘by the numbers’ look at architecture and marine engineering. Over the next decade or

Genoa Design today?

so, I was engaged in design work, engineering changes for

I think it’s worth looking at Genoa over the last 10 years or ships in operations, so the maintenance of ships in service so to get a true picture of our growth. When Canada entered support programs, mainly for the Canadian Navy, the Cana- an era of rebuilding, the industry that had been essentially dor- dian patrol frigates.

mant for a couple of decades, meaning there were new and

After that [I transitioned] to newbuilds, as the national ship- exciting programs to work on, and it gave companies like Ge- building strategy took off and we started designing and build- noa an opportunity to work on engineering projects that were ing ships that were desperately needed in Canada. design-related, problem-solving. We were fortunate to have

Today at Genoa, as the chief operating of? cer, I’m respon- joined forces with Seaspan and other supply chain partners sible for, of course, all the operations and the business per- www.marinelink.com 21

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