July-August Editorial

Congratulations to Don King who received the WEDA Lifetime Achievement Award in June. As any business owner knows the path can be a rocky one involving making the right decisions in both success and failure never giving up and putting aside all doubt with every new day. Don has been on this road for 50 years and counting and isn’t planning to retire though he did acknowledge the passage of time last year when he sold his company DMC to the McDougall Company which will carry on his legacy of dredge building and marketing.

Thirty years ago the dredge builders in Nashville were in the forefront of the industry and were especially important to the new Western Dredging Association. Many of those people are gone and the companies are now much smaller or just exist as brands. Some old friends are still around and paid their respects at the show. Bob Sutton who worked with the late Don Killom of DredgeMasters International has joined DMC and was in the booth with Don and Rick King and Alex McDougall. Clyde Brown now owner of the old names – DMI AMMCO and Dixie – visited and David Binkley who still works with Clyde stopped to say hello. Bob Sutton is the brother of Nancy Killom who was in town but busy with family and unable to visit the show.

Though these names are likely unfamiliar to the younger people among us they are important to WEDA and their activities formed an important part of IDR’s news coverage in our early years.

Dredging in the Western Hemisphere continues to safeguard commerce by providing sufficient shipping channels a fact bolstered by the news of acquisitions and dredge newbuildings. Weeks has two new dredges under construction and Great Lakes has stated that they are planning a new hopper dredge in the near future.

Those two stories are reported in this issue.

In our next issue we’ll expand on the news that Cashman has built a new drillbarge Kraken which is now at work in New York and that Ocean Industries in Canada is building an 1180-cubic-meter (1543.5 cubic yard) split-hull hopper dredge at their shipyard at l’Isle aux Coudres Quebec.

Barry Holliday reported that on Friday July 8 the Water Resources and Environment Subcommittee held a hearing on H.R. 104 the RAMP Act.

Barry wrote “Congressman Boustany was the first witness followed by Gary LaGrange president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans; Jim Weakley president of Lake Carriers; and Bonnie Adams executive director of the Long Island Fishermen Association. Following the excellent testimony by all witnesses we heard questions and comments from various subcommittee members; all were favorable. Two amendments have been submitted one by Congresswoman Napolitano and one from ranking member Bishop. The planned markup was postponed due to a lack of a quorum following a break for votes.”

He directed us to a You Tube recording Rep. Gibbs’s eloquent and succinct opening remarks about water commerce imports and exports competition and national security – all tied to passage of the RAMP act. Email me for the Web link to this speech: editor@dredgemag.com
Judith Powers
Editor