Coor­di­na­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tions through­out our man­age­ment team, with our cus­tomers,  and our employ­ees is essen­tial, espe­cial­ly when the Company’s oper­a­tions  are spread over eight (8) Great Lakes States and Cana­da, and our cus­tomers are, in fact, world-wide.  Mak­ing mat­ters more com­pli­cat­ed are the myr­i­ad of gov­ern­men­tal and cor­po­rate reg­u­la­tions requir­ing Board res­o­lu­tions, min­utes and documentation.

Car­olyn Oros has held the posi­tion of Exec­u­tive Assis­tant to the Chair­man and the Pres­i­dent of The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny for more than 35 years. She also is the Group’s Cor­po­rate Sec­re­tary and as such is a Cor­po­rate Offi­cer. Over the years she has mas­ter­ly and diplo­mat­i­cal­ly coor­di­nat­ed almost every aspect of the Company’s busi­ness, includ­ing the social and cer­e­mo­ni­al aspects. As impor­tant­ly, she is a font of cor­po­rate knowl­edge and knows where all the bod­ies are buried – she is the “go-to” per­son, said Ron Ras­mus, the Company’s Chair­man. Those same feel­ings were shared by Joe Star­ck, the Company’s Pres­i­dent; by George Sogor, Exec­u­tive VP & Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer; and Gregg Thau­vette, VP Oper­a­tions; all mem­bers of the exec­u­tive  man­age­ment team.

She was hired in 1979 by Shelly Guren, the Group’s Chair­man, who saw in her great poten­tial. At first, extra­or­di­nar­i­ly adept in short­hand and typ­ing skills, then an abil­i­ty to adapt to the use of a “telex machine” to com­mu­ni­cate with the world, and then the Company’s old-fash­ioned “switch­board.”  She embraced every advance in office tech­nol­o­gy allow­ing her to take on more respon­si­bil­i­ties such as cus­tomer rela­tions and office man­age­ment, stat­ing that “it is crit­i­cal that we quick­ly respond to our cus­tomers’ needs.”

“I take a great source of pride in the diver­si­ty of our busi­ness, and I am par­tic­u­lar­ly proud to work for a Com­pa­ny that tru­ly cares about its peo­ple. The tone of our Com­pa­ny comes from the top – each employ­ee is appre­ci­at­ed and many employ­ees have worked for the Com­pa­ny for decades.”

While she laughs that “every day is dif­fer­ent,” it is clear that Car­olyn enjoys being a part of a team of pro­fes­sion­als who tru­ly care about the mar­itime indus­try and the cus­tomers they serve every day.