Serodino Celebrates History, Super Tiger
Serodino Inc. has been a mainstay of the Chattanooga riverfront and surrounding areas for almost 100 years. Founded in 1933, the company has three divisions. Mid-South Terminals specializes in the transfer of cargo between barge, truck and rail, while Southern Electric Fleet provides fleeting and switching within the Chattanooga harbor on the Tennessee River.
The company’s shipyard is located downriver of Chattanooga in Guild, Tenn., just above Nickajack Lock and Dam. A related company, Southern Marine Construction, builds docks, water intakes, outfalls and other marine projects.
Serodino Inc. President Peter Serodino IV, whose great grandfather started the company, takes great pride in the company’s family legacy.
“My great grandfather started it, but he died suddenly and unexpectedly,” Serodino said. “My grandfather was in his mid-20s when he took everything over and made it what it is today.”
The company’s origins are in mining, with the Serodino family involved in mining coal and delivering it to a steam plant in the area.
“The steam plant wanted to start receiving coal by barge, so they built a barge loading dock,” Serodino said. “Then they started building some more docks, and that’s how Southern Marine Construction was born. They needed a boat to handle the barges, so they started the shipyard.”
Many within the maritime industry will be familiar with Serodino Inc.’s proven Tiger Class of towboats. Now, the company is in the midst of building a pair of Super Tiger Class vessels for Parker Towing Company. The Super Tiger has a larger footprint, Serodino said, and was designed with Subchapter M in mind. The horsepower offered in the Tiger and Super Tiger vessels also has grown over the years.
“Now we’re at 1,368 to 1,600 hp., depending on the engine package put in there,” Serodino said.
The design, like the company that builds it, is based on family.
“The biggest hand in the design was my grandfather from the ’70s through the early 2000s,” Serodino said. “It was further refined in collaboration with customers in the 2017 to 2019 range. What we’ve always done is to build a good handling boat. It’s a fleet boat, so it’s kind of bare bones, but it’s got more bells and whistles on it now.”
The two forthcoming boats for Parker Towing will be twin screw, 1,368 hp. vessels powered by Mitsubishi Tier 3 engines from Laborde Products. Serodino said he’s seen a real uptick with orders for Mitsubishi engines, with their pure mechanical operation a big selling point for operators.
Serodino said he expects both boats to be delivered to Parker in 2026.
“We’ve got one that’s going to wrap up in the next couple of months, and then the second one should be doing sea trials and delivery in the late fall,” he said.
Looking toward the future, Serodino said the emphasis is on modernizing the yard’s equipment over time and always focusing on efficiency and excellence in processes and production. That’s how his ancestors built Serodino Inc. into what it is today, and it’s how he hopes to see his children leading it someday.
In fact, Serodino said he expects his 10-year-old and 12-year-old to have a summer internship of sorts with the company this year.
“They’re going to come in and do some landscaping this summer, clearing out the scrub,” he said.
Beyond that, he said he’s happy for his kids to just be kids as long as possible.
Featured image caption: An aerial view of Serodino Inc.’s shipyard, located on Nickajack Lake on the Tennessee River near Guild, Tenn. (Photo courtesy of Serodino Inc.)
