WIMOs Launches Coastal Bend Chapter

Women in Maritime Operations (WIMOs) has organized its latest chapter in the Coastal Bend area of Texas.

“The Coastal Bend chapter hosted its first luncheon in October 2022, and we are already seeing rapid membership development in this area, so much so that this budding chapter is on course to become established more quickly  than any chapter in WIMOs history, as we plan to vote in this new chapter’s board in the second quarter of 2023,” WIMOs founder and executive director Kasey Eckstein said. “We owe much of this progress to Tabitha Brown with Brownwater Marine. Tabitha is a long-standing WIMOs member, and she has taken the lead on establishing the Coastal Bend chapter.”

Twenty-five women attended the October luncheon, hosted by the Port of Corpus Christi. Between that and an additional luncheon, close to a dozen companies were represented.

“We are thrilled with the diversity that the companies in this area bring in,” Eckstein said. “From steel producers to dredging companies, to the U.S. Coast Guard, this region really has it all.”

The Coastal Bend chapter will provide membership for any WIMOs members living or working between Port Lavaca and Brownsville, Texas, with most events in the Corpus Christi/Ingleside area. The chapter’s next meeting will be January 17, when members will take a private, hard-hat tour of the flight deck and operations of the U.S.S. Lexington, an Essex-class aircraft carrier built during World War II.

WIMOs has additional seed chapters in the Pacific Northwest and Jacksonville, Fla., along with active chapters with governing boards in place in Houston, southern Louisiana, western Kentucky and the Ohio Valley Region (Cincinnati).