With over 40 years of expe­ri­ence, Cap­tain Mike Pat­ter­son has honed skills that he now feels pas­sion­ate­ly about pass­ing down to the next gen­er­a­tion of tug­men at The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company.

“One of the things I’ve always liked best about the job is that a cap­tain can’t do it alone. We work as a team. Every time we’re out there we have to remem­ber that we are there for a rea­son – our cus­tomers depend on us to get them to the dock. We do it for them and for our own self-pride…your rep­u­ta­tion is on the line with every tow.”

His illus­tri­ous career includes count­less suc­cess­ful tows into port and help­ing ships through treach­er­ous ice con­di­tions. “Ice break­ing is a very del­i­cate busi­ness,” says Pat­ter­son. “You have to loosen the ice with­out dam­ag­ing the boats. You have to have sta­mi­na. You’re gone all day and into the night. There’s no rest. It’s real­ly intense — bru­tal on the tugs and on the men. You have to be a bit of an adren­a­line junkie to do this kind of work.”

Pat­ter­son loves his job, he takes great pride in hav­ing start­ed from square one and learn­ing from men­tors like his own father. “Any­one get­ting into this indus­try should start at the bot­tom and work their way up. You learn the hard way, but it makes you bet­ter at your job. This will make you a bet­ter captain.”

Safe­ty comes with expe­ri­ence. The tug­men at The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, in Patterson’s esti­ma­tion as well as many indus­try experts, “…are more expe­ri­enced than any of the com­peti­tors. The com­pe­ti­tion thinks what we do looks easy — it’s not. They can make cost­ly mis­takes, that our expe­ri­ence will pre­vent, which gives our cus­tomers an edge when they use a G‑tug.”

“If you’re the cap­tain of a ves­sel and have an acci­dent, the first thing you’re asked is if you did every­thing you could to pre­vent the acci­dent — that includes using our tug ser­vices. Tak­ing a tug is an extra cost, but the cost is noth­ing when you con­sid­er the cost of an acci­dent. The low cost of tak­ing a tug far out­weighs the cost of an acci­dent. It’s cheap insurance.”

In addi­tion to expe­ri­ence, Pat­ter­son says the rea­son he enjoys being a part of the Great Lakes team is because The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny goes the extra mile for staff, which moti­vates Tug Cap­tain Mike Pat­ter­son to exceed the expec­ta­tions cus­tomers have on each job he is a part of.