Pub­li­ca­tion: Damen Magazine
Fea­tur­ing: Joe Star­ck, Pres­i­dent, The Great Lakes Tow­ing Company

The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny and its ship­yard have a his­to­ry going back to 1899. From its head­quar­ters in Cleve­land, Ohio, on the shores of Lake Erie, it oper­ates a num­ber of spe­cial­ist divi­sions, but its main busi­ness are build­ing and repair­ing ships, and ship assist ser­vices includ­ing towage. The 40 tugs of The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny oper­ate out of 11 ports on the U.S. Great Lakes, and many of them are clas­sics, with their hulls dat­ing back many decades.

Two years ago, The Great Lakes Tow­ing Com­pa­ny Pres­i­dent, Joe Star­ck, began talk­ing with Damen regard­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ties of the lat­ter’s licens­ing pro­gram. As a non­-US com­pa­ny, Damen is pro­hib­it­ed by the Jones Act from build­ing ships in the coun­try, but Mr. Star­ck rec­og­nized the ben­e­fits of being able to offer local oper­a­tors proven Damen designs con­struct­ed at its Ship­yard in Cleve­land, called Great Lakes Ship­yard. Since then Mr. Star­ck and his team have dis­cussed the advan­tages with cus­tomers that were look­ing for designs ready to build across a range of ves­sel class­es, grad­u­al­ly build­ing inter­est in the Damen propo­si­tion and explain­ing the cost ben­e­fits that can be gained.

Download the Full Article