Capt. Scott Alvey, Hines Furlong Line

After 18 years on a harbor boat, Capt. Scott Alvey decided to follow his dreams into the linehaul business.

Now captain of Hines Furlong Line’s mv. Reggie Tubbs, Alvey, 55, of Morganfield, Ky., began his career on the river in 1990 as a green deckhand at an Ohio River coal dock in Caseyville, Ky., about 10 miles below Shawneetown, Ill.

His entrance into the industry came at age 19 when his Dad’s neighbor, Dwight Ladd, who worked for a coal company, called his Dad and said the company needed some deckhands on the river and “wondered if either of his boys would be interested in it.”

His Dad thought he might be a good fit, he said, as he knew he was wanting to make a change from working on a farm, but first he had to ask his son a question.

“Can you swim?”

Thankfully, the answer was yes.

Alvey set up a meeting with Ron Young of Bray Marine, who hired him.

Within a year, Alvey said he knew he wanted to make his career on the river, and what he wanted most was to pilot a boat. Alvey got his pilot’s license when he was 24, and, under the close watch of Capt. Aubrey Phillips, moved coal barges with the 940 hp. twin-screw mv. Sue.

Phillips stressed the value of hard work and was generous with his lessons about the river, the wheelhouse and the engineroom alike.

“I visit his grave about once a year to thank him for where I’m at,” Alvey said.

In 2000, when Young passed away, Bray Marine’s owner, Bill Bray, offered Alvey the job in Caseyville as operations manager. He stayed in that role for three years, until the local coal mines went out of business, and there was no need for a harbor service in Caseyville. Alvey stayed with the company, but his work moved to the Cincinnati-Maysville area as operations manager there, working on tugs, running heavy equipment and doing lots of work for local power plants. In 2008, the company named a brand new boat the mv. Scott Alvey in his honor.

While Alvey left Bray Marine’s employment later that year, he still talks to Bill Bray regularly. “I call him my professional father figure,” Alvey said. “He’s a whole lot of where I’m at today.”

Alvey said he realized that while he loved working on the river, he wanted more out of his career.

“I had run 1,200 hp., at the most, working for Bray,” he said. “I just always had this desire to run bigger boats and navigate the river.”

He said he loved the look and even the sound of them. He loved listening to the river pilots and captains talk about their experiences but realized he had never made a lock or a bridge himself.

It was time for a change.
“I had been in the harbor for 18 years,” Alvey said. “I said ‘Know what? I’m going to do this.’”

He credits Harley Hall at Tennessee Valley Towing for taking a chance on him.

“He gave me an opportunity when, really, nobody else would,” Alvey said.

Thankfully, it all came to me fairly easily,” he said. “I had a few good guys over there who showed me a lot.”

In January 2013, Alvey had the opportunity to go to work for Hunter Marine Transport. Steve Plummer, who has now passed away, was the port captain who hired him, he remembered. Hines Furlong Line bought the company in January 2018, following the passing of Hunter Marine Transport founder Ron Hunter in 2017.

Alvey said the past 13 years, working first for Hunter Marine Transport and now Hines Furlong Line, have been his happiest and best. He credits the leadership, knowledge and professionalism of Hines Furlong Line president and founder Kent Furlong for much of that.

“Kent, he has a really high standard of how he wants his boats to look,” he said. “It’s amazing what he’s doing with these older boats.”

That includes the Reggie Tubbs, which was completely refurbished in July 2022. The 6,000 hp. twin-screw towboat was built in 1975 in Jeffersonville, Ind., as the mv. Mr. Aldo, operated as the Sheila Johnson for many years and, before the refurbishment, was known as the Mae Etta Hines.

It looked brand new after the refurbishment, Alvey said, and, as the boat’s captain, Alvey has taken pride in keeping it looking that way.

He recalled a few months ago when the boat passed by Paducah, Ky., that the vessel’s namesake, Reggie Tubbs, happened to be watching. Tubbs posted on social media, “The boat was pristine, and the crew well-groomed.” That was a point of pride for Alvey.

“When you take a compliment from the namesake, I think that’s a big honor,” he said.

It’s not just about how the boats look, either, he said. “It’s top-notch equipment. I love running it. I love being around it.”

He added, “For me it’s a real honor to work here, and I really feel proud.”

When not working his typical 28 days on, 28 days off shift, Alvey enjoys doing trip work, often for Evansville Marine or Foertsch Group. While he has been offered other employment full time, he has turned those job offers down, saying he is firmly “a company man.”

But, he said, “I love tripping for these guys, and I love seeing different stuff.”

Alvey keeps a list of all the boats he has ever run.

“Any time I get a chance to add another boat to the list, I love it,” he said.

While he has mainly operated on the Ohio, Tennessee and Cumberland rivers, he has also spent time on the Green River and a small reach of the Upper Mississippi. His license is now on its seventh issue.

As for how he approaches the job, he said, “I like finding out where guys are from.”

He listens to them, learns about their families and tells them about his.

“I’m always showing pictures of my kids and grandkids,” Alvey said.

He also FaceTimes his three adult daughters, his five grandsons or his one granddaughter nearly every day, he said.

“That’s huge to me,” he said. “You stay connected to home a lot easier with the phones.”

While the first of his core values as a captain is safety, and efficiency is important for business, Alvey said he thinks it is important not to forget that another part of the captain’s job is genuinely caring for the crew, whether that’s asking for people’s input and feelings or asking about what they’ve got going on at home.

Alvey is also big on showing others what he expects.

“I won’t ask you to do something I won’t do myself,” he said. “Some of the guys have seen that.”

He can still throw a line, he said. “I’ll get out there and try to show them. Sometimes I think they’re pretty impressed with that.”

He said he enjoys taking on guys as green deckhands and helping to develop their skills, feeling like he is investing in the next generation the way that those before him did in him.

After 36 years in the industry and the last half of that running up and down the rivers, Alvey said he never gets tired of the beauty of the river, from the sunrises to the sunsets, the river bends, the trees, mountains and “last night, the full moon and the snow.”

He figures he will work 10 more years, until he’s 65, before retiring from full-time work, but added, “I hope I can trip until I’m 80.”