MarEx Podcast:

Our now regular feature is a popular staple for MarEx readers on the go. Our seventh podcast recounts our September 24th lead editorial referencing the performance – past, present and future – of the new USCG National Maritime Center located in Martinsburg, WV. The article drew more than its share of mail and “click-through” traffic. Now, you can also tune in and listen. MarEx Editor Joseph Keefe tells us in his editorial, entitled “NMC: Even Keel, On Course and No Excuses,” that September’s quarterly Merchant Marine Personnel Advisory Committee (MERPAC) meeting at the U.S. Coast Guard’s National Maritime Center (NMC) was much more than a routine event on the calendar of the industry volunteers who regularly advise the U.S. Coast Guard on a myriad of policy issues related to mariner credentialing, training and STCW matters. Instead, the two day event also served as a “coming out” party of sorts for the newly minted NMC. Although industry still has a few unanswered questions as to the direction and quality of the Coast Guard’s ambitious centralization plan for mariner credentialing, the sheer weight and scope of resources being thrown at this mission by DHS is no longer in question. That’s the good news. Unspoken in all of that is the knowledge that failure to execute the mission in the future, using the tools at hand, will give renewed weight to a small, but vociferous group of stakeholders who say that the move away from the local service formerly provided at 17 Regional Exam Centers (REC) was flawed from the beginning. Tune in as Keefe handicaps the prospects for one the Coast Guard’s most visible missions to succeed, by clicking HERE. MarEx Editor Joseph Keefe’s regular column returns next week in this same slot, as usual.