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vage and Related Services Contract with the U.S. Navy, Supervisor of Salvage and Diving. Donjon has held this contract, uninterrupted, since 1979, after a bidding process approximately every five years. As such, Donjon supplies equipment and personnel in support of the needs of the Federal Response Team (FEMA, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and U.S. Coast Guard who task and direct SUPSALV), and also has a 10-person management team in place in Alexandria, LA, to man- age the salvage response effort. Donjon arrived in the region on Sep- tember 3 and remains there performing nearly round-the-clock salvage and land clearance work with the United States Navy and other subcontracted marine salvors to Donjon. The company is also employing pollution control and remedia- tion contractors in support of the overall response. Donjon equipment being uti- lized for the New Orleans operations is the 1,000-ton-capacity derrick barge the Chesapeake, the largest floating crane on the East coast, as well as the 7,000 hp Attendant Tug Atlantic Salvor. The Chessy has a four-man operating crew and four- to six-person salvage crew. The Salvage Master for this effort is William Kratz, III. Another Donjon Salvage Flotilla cur- rently in-region is the 400-ton capacity D/B Columbia New York and its attendant tug, the 8,000-hp AHTS Powhatan and 1,200-hp push tug Herbert P. Brake. The Columbia New York has a six- to eight- man operating crew; the Salvage Master is Dale Springer. Between these two salvage crews, Don- jon also has a five-man dive crew, as well as approximately 10-12 local contractors assisting in the recovery effort. Crowley Honored for Environmental Stewardship Crowley and its Marine Transport Lines subsidiary were recently named recipients of the Chamber of Shipping of America's 2005 Environmental Achievement Awards. The companies collectively had 19 vessels that they manage and or oper- ate that have achieved environmental excellence (zero incidents) for at least a three-year period. Of those 19, two vessels, tankers Blue Ridge and Coast Range have been inci- dent free for seven years, while nine of the vessels have been incident free for five years. In all, 264 vessels were recognized by the CSA during the ceremony, repre- senting over 1100 years of environmental safety. Jones Joins Crowley as VP Gary Jones has joined Crowley as vice president of information tech- nology (IT). In his new position, Jones is responsi- ble for the strate- gic and tactical planning, produc- tion, deployment and maintenance of enterprise-wide tech- nology solutions. Additionally, Jones directs the development of application and infrastructure strategies and standards, policies and procedures, quality, cost con- trol and customer service standards. He manages a staff of approximately 100 technology professionals from his office in Jacksonville and reports to Susan Rodgers, senior vice president, adminis- tration. Jones brings over 20 years of accomplishments in the IT field to Crow- ley from the consumer and financial sec- tors. He has direct business experience in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina and Chile. Most recently Jones served as vice president, business solu- tions delivery for merchandising, manu- facturing, SCM and corporate systems for Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc. Prior to that, he spent 13 years with Home Depot in Atlanta, Ga., in various directorial posi- tions including merchandising process management, international business development, international systems and application development. Jones holds a Bachelors degree in busi- ness administration, finance and account- ing from Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and earned Six Sigma Greenbelt Cer- tification from Southern Polytechnic State University in Marietta, Ga. OSI Acquires Tech Supplier Offshore Systems International has entered into a formal agreement to acquire a United States-based defense contracting company. The purchase price will be $9 million, of which approximately $8.1 mil- lion will be paid in cash, with the balance to be paid by the issuance of 1,067,975 OSI common shares. OSI first announced a non-binding letter of intent to acquire the target company on July 11, 2005. The target company reported revenues of approximately $12 million (unaudited) in 2004 and has shown consistent growth and profitability throughout its history. The company has approximately 80 employees located at three offices in the United States. Adesta Selected by Maryland Port Adesta was awarded a $5.5M contract with the Maryland Port Administration to design and install a sophisticated security system at the Port of Baltimore. The pro- ject will include the installation of a remote video surveillance system as well as enhancements to terminal perimeter security. The expected completion date for the project is fall 2006.The system will provide the Port with total perimeter secu- rity and includes a scalable communica- tions and electronic security network. 12 • MarineNews • December, 2005 NEWS The Struggle to Build the Jean Anne In the boat building busi- ness, there is an old adage- the bigger they are, the more trouble they cause. In the case of the Jean Anne, that was certainly true. You would not have known that by the big smiles on the faces of the executives from Pasha Group, Strong Vessel Operators and VT Halter Marine that attended the Jean Anne Christening cere- mony in San Diego on March 21, 2005. But underneath those smiles was the realization that it was no small miracle that the vessel was completed at all. The time line goes something like this. On June 7, 2000 the parties announce the signing of a $70 million contract to build the world's first Jones Act Pure Car Truck Carrier. At the time, the shipyard was named Halter Marine, a division of Friede Goldman Halter. MarAd had signed on to guarantee the loan through the Title XI program. That meant the federal government would guarantee 85% of the construction cost of the vessel. On December 11, 2000 the same parties agreed to build a second car carrier for $69 million and construction would depend on Marad's approval of a financing guarantee for this vessel as well. When Friede Goldman Halter sought bankruptcy protection on April 20, 2001, it was first felt that this development would have minimal impact on the fall 2002 delivery of the first PCTC. The project had a finance guarantee by MarAd's Title XI program and performance and payment bonds were in place with Travelers Casualty and Sure- ty Company of America for the full value of the shipbuilding contract. Traveler's however, had different plans and things started to unravel fast. The Title XI contract required the bonds be in place but Traveler's discontinued interim financing in July 2001 and work stopped on the vessel. By March 2002, MarAd joined the owner's suit to force Traveler's to honor their con- tract. Marad was also fighting for its life against a Bush Administration that was try- ing to gut the Title XI program. Marad had suffered the embarrassing collapse of American Classic Voyages attempt to build two cruise liners at Ingalls Shipyard and were on the hook for this $200 million mistake and party to a losing battle to reopen the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy, Mass. They could not suffer another large loss on the PCTC contract. A Mississippi court ruled in June 2002 that Traveler's had indeed breached a performance bond by failing to pay to complete the vessel. By this time work had been suspended on the vessel for almost a year. It took several more months before work would began on the Jean Anne. In December 2002, the owners (Pacific Hawaii Transport Lines (a joint venture between the Pasha Group and Van Ommeren Shipping (USA) LLC) reached an agreement with Traveler's on the financial terms that permitted PHTL to restart the project. By this time PHTL was dealing with the new owners of the Halter Marine Pascagoula yard, Vision Technologies, a Singapore company. It was February 2003 when work finally restarted with a delivery date of late 2004. Considering the complexity of the project VT Halter Marine did an out- standing job in completing the project in February 2005, about two years from sign- ing the renegotiated contract. -- Larry Pearson (Jean Anne is profiled as a “Great Boat of 2005 in this edition. See page 17) This August 2003 photo shows the state of completion on the Jean Anne a few months after work restarted in February 2003. (Photo Credit VT Halter Marine) DECEMBER MN2005 2(9-16).qxd 12/5/2005 3:37 PM Page 12
