Brown Water Mariner Graduates from Texas A&M Maritime Academy

Chad McBride, a fifth-generation mariner with 30 years of experience at his family’s towboat company, graduated this spring from Texas A&M University’s virtual maritime program in Galveston, Texas, with his master’s degree in Maritime Business Administration and Logistics. While the program at Texas A&M accepts brown-water students, the program is almost entirely blue-water focused. Having an extensive career on the river, McBride was able to bring a unique viewpoint to his classes.

“I became the brown-water guy,” McBride said. “They told me they found it very interesting to get the brown-water side of it, because in a way, [blue-water people] don’t even think of us. I mean, their companies are operating globally, and so when they go into Port of Galveston, for example, and unload whatever cargo they have, they rely on trucks and the railroad. But they’re just as curious about us as we are about them, and we’re all maritime. We just don’t really travel in the same circles, so this was my only opportunity to go shoulder to shoulder with these guys. I expected them to be better than us, just to be quite honest, but they were exactly the same as we are.”

Because the maritime program was centered around blue water, McBride had to translate what he learned in a way that applied to brown water. Blue water cargo is often measured in TEUs, while the brown water industry typically looks at barges and tow size. Some translation has to occur between the two.

“It’s like talking to a trucking company about miles per gallon on their diesel fuel, like we’re not even remotely the same,” McBride said. “If I’ve got 15 loads and I’m getting 3 miles on the river per gallon, they’re going to think that’s horrible, but I’m moving way more product than them. Everything is also a longer timetable with [blue water]. So, I had trouble visualizing these concepts.”

McBride said that his inexperience with blue water made Texas A&M daunting. According to Texas A&M Today in 2021, the master’s program in Maritime Administration and Logistics was named No. 1 in the United States and No. 9 in the world.

“I always wanted to go to Texas A&M,” McBride said. “It was more like a fantasy, like a dream, so when the opportunity presented itself, I pounced on it. I don’t think it surprised anybody more than me that I did

so well in the program. When you step up to a big-name school like Texas A&M, it’s a little intimidating. I mean, I work for a family company. I’ve been around this stuff all my life. I’ve done this job for 30 years, and I’m confident in what I can do, but at the same time, I’m not asked all the time to go out and prove it, especially at the best school in the country.”

McBride did well from the start, earning an A in his second class. One thing that surprised McBride the range of ages among his classmates.

“I’m 44 years old this year,” he said. “I assumed I was going to be in class with a bunch of 20-year-olds, but it wasn’t really that way. It was a very even split between the kids that just finished their undergrad maritime degree and the people like me who were working in the industry that wanted to go back and learn a little bit more. It was hard, but not as hard as I thought it’d be, and the support and just knowing that we were all boat people was incredible.”

Even though he was in a blue-water program, McBride said the information he learned while at Texas A&M was invaluable.

“Every class I took had real-world value to me, something I could bring back to my family’s little towboat company in Louisville, Kentucky,” McBride said. “If I do this, it’ll make us better. If I do this, it’ll make us safer. I’m a big believer in continuous improvement.”

McBride credits his father for instilling in him the value of education and the pursuit of a college degree. After eight years of studying and working 60-hour weeks at the family business, McBride became a first-generation college graduate and received his bachelor’s degree in 2006. Now that he’s graduated from Texas A&M, McBride hopes to finish the MBA he started at Indiana University Southeast before the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It was very important to my father that all three of his kids go to college,” McBride said. “I’ve learned things through school that totally changed the way I live my life. It just makes you a better person. It all flows back to Dad.”

Although his experience was virtual, McBride praised the unique sense of community at Texas A&M, and he felt he was an Aggie through and through, even over Zoom.

“In any schooling I’ve ever done, I’ve never felt such a sense of  community,” McBride said. “I just felt at ease in that program. I felt like I belonged. I knew I was passionate about this, but it amplified when I went to Texas A&M.”

McBride hopes to teach at the college level in the future with an emphasis on brown water.