The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny under­went its annu­al Fleet Per­for­mance Meet­ing. Com­pa­ny Tug Cap­tains, Engi­neers, and Deck­hands from all of the var­i­ous ports across the Great Lakes meet annu­al­ly for this meet­ing to under­go train­ing, learn about changes in U.S. Coast Guard reg­u­la­tions and Com­pa­ny pol­i­cy, and dis­cuss rel­e­vant indus­try topics.

This year, the tug­men attend­ed the U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion Mar­itime Administration’s Fire Train­ing Cen­ter in Swan­ton, OH. They par­tic­i­pat­ed in a week-long fire train­ing course which is designed to sup­port the fire pre­ven­tion and fire-fight­ing train­ing require­ments for cer­tifi­cates or license endorse­ments of the Unit­ed States Mer­chant Marines and to devel­op­ment the con­fi­dence and skills nec­es­sary to com­bat ship­board fires.

The Fleet Per­for­mance Meet­ings are just one of the many ini­tia­tives through which the Com­pa­ny con­tin­ues its affil­i­a­tion with 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.