Jack O'Connell

Senior Editor

In 2006 Jack retired from Seabulk International, where he was Senior Vice President for Corporate Communications and Investor Relations. He previously worked for 20 years at W.R. Grace & Co., where he was Director of Public Affairs and chief speechwriter for J. Peter Grace.

Can Offshore Wind Save the Workboat Industry?

By Jack O'Connell 2018-08-28 22:42:17

In March, the U.S. workboat company Harvey Gulf filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, the latest in a long list of casualties dating back to 2014 when oil prices collapsed. The list includes notables like Tidewater and GulfMark and some of the better-known North Sea operators, who either declared bankruptcy or merged with competitors to better weather the storm. Bourbon, the biggest of the big, has managed to avoid bankruptcy thus far but has been downsizing and restructuring for the last...

Ramesh Krishnan, Chairman & CEO, R&M Group

By Jack O'Connell 2018-08-28 16:13:53

Tell us about yourself. I’m an engineer. My parents have Indian and English ancestry, so I grew up in both cultures until the age of eight, then very much European. I’m a German, studied in Germany, settled in Germany. From my inner values and the way I think, my colleagues say I’m very German. I would rather say my heart is Indian, my soul is British, and my thought-process is...

Anthony George, President & CEO, FUELTRAX

By Jack O'Connell 2018-04-19 16:25:00

Anthony George, President & CEO, FUELTRAXTM George finds motivation in helping others. Maybe that’s why his products are so successful. By Jack O’Connell Tell us about your background and education. I graduated from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas with degrees in Physics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I’m a big supporter of education, serving on multiple boards for Lamar’s Entrepreneurship Program and serving as Board President of The Woodlands Christian Academy in The Woodlands, Texas. What inspired you to...

Irrational Exuberance?

By Jack O'Connell 2018-04-08 20:33:55

It was a year for the record books. Despite persistent warnings from most financial advisors that stocks were overvalued and a painful correction was imminent, the markets roared ahead in 2017, setting record after record in the process. The tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 28 percent, the Dow Jones Industrial Average 25 percent, and the broadly-based S&P 500 19 percent. More all-time highs were reached in 2017 than in any previous year. And the giddiness continued right into the New Year with...

Clay Maitland, Managing Partner, International Registries, Inc.

By Jack O'Connell 2018-03-09 15:20:00

Tell us about your early life. Since grade school my family and I lived near salt water, and in retrospect I was destined for a career that was more or less maritime. Like a lot of kids, I was fascinated by those plastic Revell ship models that could be assembled from out of a box. My mother was American and my father, who was lost three months after I was born, had been a bomber pilot in the Royal Air...

CAMRON GHANEMI, Vice President, ACE World Companies

By Jack O'Connell 2018-02-25 13:39:56

ACE WAS FOUNDED BY YOUR FATHER 30 YEARS AGO. TELL US ABOUT THAT AND HOW THE COMPANY HAS EVOLVED SINCE THEN. There was a niche in the marketplace for robust, heavy-duty, custom lifting solutions at the time. Being in the industry, my father recognized this and founded the company in 1987. From then until 2005 we dealt almost exclusively through a network of dealers. We would sell components to dealers, and they would use the components to build cranes for...

Export Machine

By Jack O'Connell 2017-11-26 16:47:37

Trade has been much in the news these days, particularly as the U.S. President has taken dead aim at those countries that would dare to run a trade surplus against the U.S. The enmity extends to friend and foe alike – China, Japan, Germany, Mexico, South Korea, you’re all in this together. How dare you profit at our expense! It’s unfair! It may be against the law, and it’s certainly un-American. So watch out! Sanctions are coming! Really? Here’s what...

Boud Van Rompay, Founder & CEO, Hydrex and Subsea Industries

By Jack O'Connell 2017-11-22 15:24:46

Tell us about yourself. How did you get into the maritime business? I abandoned my legal studies to become a cave explorer, cave diver and mountaineer, making breakthroughs in cave exploration and laying the foundation for a future in underwater technology. After first diving as a hobby, I began work as a commercial diver in Antwerp, Belgium, carrying out underwater ship repair and maintenance. It was during this work that I came face-to-face with the horrific levels of water...

Elizabeth Reynolds Boyd, President, NAUTICAN

By Jack O'Connell 2017-10-17 17:45:10

TELL US ABOUT YOURSELF. WHERE ARE YOU FROM? I was born in Tennessee, which is why I’m an American citizen, but I grew up in Canada – on Prince Edward Island (PEI). I have a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Naval Architecture from Memorial University in Newfoundland. After college I went to Tasmania where I worked as a research assistant while getting my Master’s degree, specializing in ship maneuvering. In 2011 I earned an MBA from the University of Washington...

Back to the Future

By Jack O'Connell 2017-10-08 18:20:19

Today’s world is all about independence and self-sufficiency. Use less. Waste less. Recycle. Me first. America first. We seem to be going back to an age when it was every man for himself and we’ll worry about the other guy later. “Me before you” and “me, not you” have become the memes of our age, appearing everywhere and defining a new set of relations between peoples and nations, yet one that hearkens back deep into the past. Even the future...