Duffy Receives Propeller Club Achievement Award
The International Propeller Club, which met for its annual convention in Lyon, France, October 13–15, presented Big River Coalition Executive Director Sean Duffy with a lifetime achievement award during the final day of the convention. Maria Conatser, senior financial planning analyst for Ingram Barge Company who just concluded her two-year term as president of the International Propeller Club, presented the award to Duffy.
“Lifetime achievement awards are rare and signify an individual’s sustained outstanding contributions and leadership throughout their career,” Conatser said. “It recognizes their impact to the industry, their service and their inspiration to others. Today, we honor a man whose name has become synonymous with advocacy, collaboration and the enduring promise of navigation itself, Sean M. Duffy Sr.”
Conatser said a distinctive aspect of Duffy’s career is where he got his start.
“Before he ever testified before a committee or chaired a federal advisory panel, Sean was a boarding agent, a deckhand, a stevedore and a marine surveyor,” she said. “Those experiences gave him something that cannot be taught: a deep salt-and-mud understanding of the work, the risks and the people that keep commerce moving. He saw the river from eye level, not an office window.”
That experience, Conatser said, led to one important thing: trust.
“The pilots, the port directors, the dredging contractors, the shipping lanes, the engineers, the Corps of Engineers and the environmental agencies all learned that Sean Duffy was the one person who could speak every dialect of the maritime world,” she said. “Operational, political and technical. He became the translator between mariners and policy makers, between those that built the channels and those that sailed them.”
Duffy brought all that experience and those relationship to bear with the effort to deepen the Mississippi River Ship Channel from 45 feet to 50 feet. The deepening project was authorized long before Duffy got involved, but his relationships and experience were critical to making it a reality, Conatser said.
“He had the operational credibility to convince mariners it could be done safely, the policy knowledge to persuade Congress and the Corps that it should be done, and the trust of every stakeholder from Baton Rouge to the Gulf to make sure it would be done right,” she said.
While audacious, the $238 million deepening project was also impactful for business and industry that uses the Mississippi River Ship Channel, so much so that the Corps of Engineers calculated the benefit-cost ratio at 7.2 to 1—practically unprecedented.
“By adding just five feet of depth, every ship calling on the Lower Mississippi can now carry millions of dollars more cargo per voyage … with fewer trips, lower costs and lower emissions,” she said.
At that rate, the project paid for itself in just two years.
Much of the dredged material gleaned from the deepening was used beneficially to nourish existing wetlands in south Louisiana or create new land.
“This single project safeguards commerce, strengthens the U.S. export economy and restores vital ecosystems, a rare alignment of economic and environmental success,” Conatser said.
Duffy, who received the C. Alvin Bertel Award in 2022 and the Global Maritime Ministries Crystal Lighthouse Award in 2018, among other professional recognitions, said receiving the International Propeller Club award was amazing.
“It really was special,” Duffy said. “Of course, it’s nice to be recognized and appreciated.”
With Conatser’s two-year term coming to an end, Propeller Club members elected Costis Frangoulis, founder and CEO of Franman, as its new president. Franoulis is the current president of the Propeller Club, Port of Piraeus, located on the coast near Athens, Greece.
Featured image caption: Sean and Michele Duffy pose for a picture at the International Propeller Club’s gala dinner, held October 15 at L’Hôtel du Département du Rhône in Lyon, France. (Photo courtesy of Sean Duffy)
