Category: leadership

The Big Maritime Things in 2024

Well, here we go again. Another end of year list of things that manage to raise my passion or ire. Strangely the list looks more like a 2025 “to do” list than a review of 2024.   1.  The Crisis in Maritime Personnel. There is a real shortage of personnel in maritime. In some countries… Read more »

Maritime; A Strange Trip. By Bob Burke

Maritime is a strange trip. It is worldwide and at the same time feels like living in a small village where everybody knows everybody. Too often you run into somebody in some random maritime den of inequity and you both go: “Great to see you! Was it 30 years ago we last hung out?” When… Read more »

The Big Maritime Things in 2023

The year is almost over, and I took some time to ponder the last 12 months. Such pondering demands perspective and I decided to check out my 2013 Big Maritime List. Overall, that provided no shocking insights or misjudgments, but some of it is folded into the first three items of this year’s list. Maritime… Read more »

The Big Maritime Things in 2022

2022 is almost over and it is time to do some navel staring. 1. How Big Can a Small Mistake Be? Putin deciding to invade Ukraine will probably go down in history as the world’s biggest boner by a single individual. Since Putin is still in power, we should not ignore the possibility he might… Read more »

Sergio Marchionne, An Appreciation of a Leader

I have always had an odd fascination with Chrysler. The whole story is too long to get into, but it relates to my Mother first seeing value in Chrysler stock and timing the ups and downs like Paganini on a violin, and my days at Chrysler’s Highland Parks Tech Center working with Chrysler engineers on… Read more »

Great Directors Lead

On a recent trip to Sicily to deal with construction issues on a number of high speed catamarans, I saw this forklift parked in a director’s reserved parking spot. I like it. I am not sure a forklift operator is trying to make a point or if a director is making a point, but there… Read more »