As the sec­ond gen­er­a­tion in his fam­i­ly to work on a tug, Tug Cap­tain George LaTour knows what attracts peo­ple to work on the water is inter­est, but what keeps them is hard work and passion.

“In this job there is nev­er a dull moment. What makes it worth­while is the cama­raderie you feel for your crew and the way you are able to real­ly help sal­ties and lak­ers when they need you most. We are there to help ships go in and out of port safe­ly and go about their busi­ness with­out inci­dent. Tugs are the key to mak­ing sure, when things don’t go the way our cus­tomers expect they will, we can turn things around.”

In his 40th sea­son work­ing for The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, LaTour con­tin­ues to bring his expe­ri­ence to bear on behalf of those com­ing into and going out of the Port of Duluth. “Expe­ri­ence comes from learn­ing the ships over time” – that’s The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny Difference.”

When asked why he loves work­ing in mar­itime, LaTour is quick to answer: “It’s excit­ing to see the way our indus­try is chang­ing, to be a part of it. See­ing the way that the sal­ties, lak­ers and our tugs are being mod­ern­ized is excit­ing – it keeps me inter­est­ed. I’m con­tin­u­al­ly learn­ing more – we all are – that’s what makes my job exciting.”

As a sea­soned Tug Cap­tain, LaTour looks back on the last 40 sea­sons with fond­ness. When asked if he would do it all over again he says, “Yeah, I think I would. The peo­ple that I work for at The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny, those that I work with and the oth­er Tug Cap­tains have become good friends – fam­i­ly. It’s been fun.”

Uti­liz­ing a Full-Ser­vice Lakes-Wide Tow­ing Con­tract with The Tow­ing Com­pa­ny pro­vides added insur­ance. It’s an added lev­el of safe­ty and sea­man­ship to pro­tect your crew, equip­ment, and the envi­ron­ment; wher­ev­er your ves­sel may call on the Great Lakes.