Affiliations

The Great Lakes Group and its affil­i­at­ed com­pa­nies are mem­bers of the Amer­i­can Water­ways Oper­a­tors (AWO), the nation­al trade asso­ci­a­tion rep­re­sent­ing own­ers and oper­a­tors of tug­boats, tow­boats, and barges serv­ing the water­borne com­merce of the Unit­ed States.

AWO’s mis­sion is to pro­mote the long term eco­nom­ic sound­ness of the indus­try, and to enhance the indus­try’s abil­i­ty to pro­vide safe, effi­cient, and envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble trans­porta­tion, through advo­ca­cy, pub­lic infor­ma­tion, and the estab­lish­ment of safe­ty standards.

All oper­at­ing Com­pa­nies of the Group are par­tic­i­pants in the indus­try-ini­ti­at­ed Respon­si­ble Car­ri­er Pro­gram (RCP).  RCP is designed as a frame­work for con­tin­u­ous­ly improv­ing the indus­try’s safe­ty per­for­mance.  AWO mem­bers use the RCP as a guide in devel­op­ing com­pa­ny-spe­cif­ic safe­ty and envi­ron­men­tal pro­grams that are tai­lored to the unique oper­a­tional envi­ron­ments found in the barge and tow­ing indus­try. The pro­gram com­ple­ments and builds upon exist­ing gov­ern­ment reg­u­la­tions, requir­ing com­pa­ny safe­ty stan­dards that exceed those required by fed­er­al law or regulation.

The RCP incor­po­rates best indus­try prac­tices in three pri­ma­ry areas, includ­ing com­pa­ny man­age­ment poli­cies, ves­sel equip­ment and human fac­tors.  This com­pre­hen­sive pro­gram requires com­pa­nies to obtain a third par­ty audit by an AWO-cer­ti­fied audi­tor to ver­i­fy com­pli­ance.  The pro­gram has been laud­ed by many groups, includ­ing the U.S. Coast Guard and ship­per organizations.