AWO Leaders Reflect On 80 Years Of Advocacy, Service

When leaders of the American Waterways Operators (AWO) talk about their journey with the organization, it’s clear the growth and development of the organization has been forged in fire.

President & CEO Jennifer Carpenter’s baptism of fire came with her very first week at AWO, which happened the same week that the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 was passed in response to the disastrous oil spill of the Exxon Valdez.

“I had to start out drinking from the firehose right away,” Carpenter said.

That act would result in deep changes to both the blue-water and brown-water industries, including mandated double-skinned barges for petroleum products.

“Each time one of these crises presents us with challenges—whether it’s 9/11, low water, flooding, an economic downturn, COVID, cyber challenges, a hurricane—they have also been opportunities for us to work more closely with our partners in government—the Corps, Coast Guard, the Environmental Protection Agency, Congress and our state and local partners,” Carpenter said. “Each of these crises has left us with new, smarter ways of doing things, closer cooperation and a better, faster response.”

The need for engagement has always drawn industry leaders into service with AWO. Capt. Rick Iuliucci, vice president of operations at The Vane Bros. Company and the immediate past chairman of AWO’s board, said, “I have had a long-standing relationship with AWO. Even before working at Vane, I was the AWO representative for Maritrans in the early 90s before moving to Vane.”

Former AWO Chairman Merritt Lane, chairman of the board, president and CEO of Canal Barge Company, said, “My uncle, Merrick Jones, encouraged me to get involved with AWO. He believed in our industry working together to solve problems and that we amplified our industry’s voice by speaking collectively. Our company has had a legacy of being an active citizen in the industry, and I have enjoyed my opportunities to serve.”

In Lane’s view, keeping the industry in public view is an ongoing challenge.

“The most common issue over the years has been that our industry is one of the quietest and least well-known of the transportation industries,” he said. “Most folks know about trucks, trains, ships and airplanes, but very few know about what goes on between the levees on our barges.

“Years ago,” he added, “I worked on a study with AWO to discover what our industry’s image was. Our consultant determined that the boat and barge industry did not suffer from a bad reputation, as we feared, but from ‘no reputation.’ As a result of not having educated the public about our incredible track record of providing safe, efficient and reliable transportation, our occasional major incidents such as oil spills or bridge allisions become what we are known for.”

Besides seeking to explain the importance of the industry to public officials, Lane said the most prevalent issues over the decades include defending the Jones Act and advocating for federal investment in waterways infrastructure.

Safety Focus

One of AWO’s most enduring commitment has been to improving safety. The Coast Guard-AWO Safety Partnership is a first-of-its-kind public-private partnership to improve safety and environmental protection and strengthen the relationship between the Coast Guard and industry. That partnership was part of what led to Subchapter M, which raised the bar for safety across the entire tugboat, towboat and barge industry.

Kelly Teichman, chairman of the board of T&T Marine, who also currently chairs the AWO’s board of directors, said, “The [AWO-created] Responsible Carrier Program was critical in sending a signal to our mariners, our member companies, our regulators and the public that our industry would not be content with meeting regulatory minimums but would go above and beyond those requirements as a matter of safety culture.”

Teichman also pointed to AWO’s Safety Statistics Reporting Program as an important metric for tracking safety trends within the industry.

Teichman is especially proud of the American Waterways HERO (Honor and Excellence in Rescue Operations) Awards, which document and recognize rescues undertaken by AWO member company employees.

“The award is a testament to the strong connection our mariners have to each other and the communities they serve by keeping each other and their fellow waterways users safe while performing their essential work,” she said. “That’s true whether you are moving barges on our inland rivers, moving cargo or bunkering on our coastal waters, performing ship-assist services in our busy harbors, or running dredging or salvage operations to keep our waterways moving.”

Jones Act Support

Lane called supporting the Jones Act the most important issue for maritime advocates. In addition to her role at AWO, since last January Carpenter has led the American Maritime Partnership, which focuses the voice of the entire American merchant marine, blue water and brown water, in support of the Jones Act.

“The Jones Act’s support has proven resilient,” Lane said. “In general, Democrats have reliably supported the Jones Act and seem to continue to be reliably supportive. The strongest support on the Republican side comes from the ‘solid red’ states along the Gulf Coast that also have significant maritime communities, including important ports and significant shipbuilding industry. Some conservative think tanks are less favorable on the Jones Act, so our industry will need to stay on topic.”

Seeing the entire inland waterways as a system also means recognizing its close connections with the blue-water merchant marine, Carpenter said. She pointed to AWO’s involvement in organizing public comments on California’s Harbor Craft Rule, which threatens to drive tugboats off of California’s waters by imposing devices critics say are unsafe, all in the name of fighting emissions.

“We recognize that we are all part of the same industry,” she said.

New Voices

To tell the industry’s story, AWO holds barge-ins on Capitol Hill and in state capitols, hosts towboat and tugboat tours, organizes media engagements and develops promotional materials.

“These efforts have been vital, not only to telling the industry’s story to policymakers, but also the public, which includes the men and women we hope to recruit and retain to become the next generation of mariners as demand for our essential industry continues to grow,” Teichman said.

Labor issues in the inland industry have lessened somewhat, Lane said. Labor scarcity remains a concern but is not as problematic as it was immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Positions in our industry are very competitive, with available shore jobs, and provide meaningful upside in subsequent years that can help American citizens move many rungs up the economic ladder if they commit to their careers,” he said. “The industry goes through phases and is currently going through the process of replacing legacy leaders and creating new ones. Our industry is unlike many in that it is management intensive, and you learn a lot of the nuance of the job through learning from others and personal experience on the job.

“At Canal Barge we have been successful in attracting some outstanding talent and are continuously developing our onboard and onshore leadership by providing state-of-the-art training and giving them important responsibilities and opportunities to learn,” Lane added.

Teichman said, “Over the past 80 years, our advocacy has remained steady, thoughtful and remarkably effective in the face of constant change, whether it’s change that accompanies election results for the White House, Congress, state legislatures and governor’s mansions or change that accompanies cyclical leadership transitions within the Coast Guard and other key agencies. Even as political and leadership winds have shifted all around us, we have never let that affect our ability to get hard things done. We have built strong, bipartisan support for the Jones Act but acknowledge that hard work lies ahead maintaining and expanding support for the Jones Act in an increasingly polarized political landscape.”

One change in particular has eased the recruitment situation, Teichman said.

“The importance of getting our message to potential mariners is key for future recruitment, and this occurs by educating middle school and high school students on what the industry does and what it has to offer,” she said. “This recruitment includes one segment of the population that has not typically considered the maritime industry as a viable career: women.

Teichman pointed to World War II when women filled the employment void left by departing soldiers.

“Maybe it is fate, maybe coincidence or maybe just plain luck that I would be the first female AWO chairman during this time, when we commemorate 80 years since the D-Day liberation of Europe, the defining military campaign of that era, a time that was also a defining moment for women in the American workplace,” Teichman said. “As a student of history, I have to acknowledge the significance, as well as the responsibility, to females both in the industry today and those to come.”