If you get a chance, read Dynasties of the Sea: The Shipowners and Financiers Who Expanded the Era of Free Trade by Lori Ann LaRocco. I began Dynasties of the Sea with great anticipation mainly because I had just finished The Shipping Man by Matthew...
On February 7, 2013, Congressmen Cedric Richmond (D-LA) and Michael Grimm (R-NY) announced the formation of a Congressional Maritime Caucus. The caucus will give every member of Congress an opportunity to better understand the crucial role that the U.S.-flag maritime industry and its workforce of...
On a recent overseas flight I sat next to a guy who works as a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. After creating and selling off a few successful internet companies he turned his efforts to investing in internet startups. He essentially now decides what the future...
As the Department of Defense faces looming budget cuts, the various branches of the military must be scrambling to assure the administration as to the efficacy of their various programs. The service provided during war time it is clear and higher military spending is easily...
If you are looking for some licentious and lascivious reading relating to shipping, look no further than the Paris MOU list of vessel registry rankings. The greatest obscenity of the rankings is the United States demotion from the white list to the gray list. At...
I had the privilege recently to visit the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England and see firsthand not only the demarcation of 0° longitude, known as the Prime Meridian or the Greenwich Meridian, but also John Harrison’ s revolutionary timepieces. This visit is a rite of...
If you peruse news outlets and the internet you may notice a growing number of articles and blog posts denouncing the Jones Act, concluding that it causes high gasoline prices. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) even recently introduced legislative amendments that would repeal the Jones Act...
The annual Great Lakes Waterways Conference, themed, “Recovery, Renewal & Reinvestment 2012,” was held during the last week of February in Cleveland, Ohio. Various industry experts from both Canada and the United States attended and participated in roundtable discussions on the current state of Great...
One of my first shipping assignments out of school was aboard a break bulk cargo vessel bound for Thule, Greenland. The neat thing about that run are the massive icebergs as you get closer to the Arctic Circle. But the bergs can also be the...
