Most of the year, Dis­patch­ers work around the clock on rotat­ing sched­ules man­ning the Tow­ing Com­pa­ny’s Oper­a­tions Cen­ter, the logis­tics hub of the com­pa­ny. Dis­patch­ers take calls from freights request­ing tows, call out crews, respond to alarms, and many oth­er day-to-day tasks.

When the sea­son slows down in the win­ter time, the Com­pa­ny uses this oppor­tu­ni­ty to cross train dis­patch­ers in oth­er depart­ments to get a big pic­ture view of the com­pa­ny and its operations.

For Christo­pher Swenk, a typ­i­cal day dur­ing his time cross train­ing in the Pur­chas­ing Depart­ment includes post­ing invoic­es for accounts payable, com­par­ing state­ments to invoic­es already post­ed, mak­ing pur­chas­es for the ship­yard based on req­ui­si­tions, run­ning to ven­dors for pick ups of orders and ensur­ing the ship­yard has every­thing they need to do their job. 

Accord­ing to Swenk, “what I noticed last year is how much work­ing in Pur­chas­ing real­ly does help my job as an Oper­a­tions Coor­di­na­tor. Being in Pur­chas­ing helped me build pro­fes­sion­al rela­tion­ships with some of our ven­dors that we use with the Tow­ing com­pa­ny. I am a big believ­er in build­ing those work­ing rela­tion­ships with not only our cus­tomers but with the ven­dors that are vital to keep­ing our oper­a­tion mov­ing. I also believe that know­ing that aspect of the com­pa­ny helps build a trust with the tug men that if they need some­thing, all they have to do is let me know and they, in turn, trust that I can get what they need.”

For Regi­na White, she loves any oppor­tu­ni­ty she can get to learn new things, dif­fer­ent posi­tions, and skills. In her time cross train­ing she has learned to cre­ate pur­chase orders and post­ing the invoic­es asso­ci­at­ed with them, con­tact­ing ven­dors for quotes, and ver­i­fy­ing deliv­ery dates on PO’s.

A typ­i­cal day for White includes cre­at­ing pur­chase orders and post­ing the invoic­es asso­ci­at­ed with them, con­tact­ing ven­dors for quotes, ver­i­fy­ing deliv­ery dates on POs, and mak­ing runs to pick up items the ship­yard and tow­ing com­pa­ny may need.

She says that, “work­ing in Pur­chas­ing helps pro­vide me with new skills and the abil­i­ty to fill in dif­fer­ent roles with in the com­pa­ny if need­ed. It has also pro­vid­ed me with new skills that could help me in future career oppor­tu­ni­ties.”

As the tow­ing sea­son starts up soon, White and Swenk will return to their reg­u­lar roles in Oper­a­tions and Dis­patch­ers. This year, they’ll be car­ry­ing over all of the skills and expe­ri­ence they learned this Pur­chas­ing this winter.