Features

When considering a career in the maritime industry, many young people are drawn to the wheelhouse first. There’s no denying the appeal of standing between the sticks of a towboat. Read More

Johnny Holt Johnny Holt was already a painter and a welder in 1988 when he began decking for Tuscaloosa, Ala.-based Parker Towing Company at the suggestion of his father-in-law, Capt. Read More

They may not spend a watch in the wheelhouse or appear in line-handling reels on TikTok, but they’re nonetheless indispensable to the 24-hour movement of towboats on the nation’s waterways. Read More

Robert Yount For more than 30 years, deckhands, tankermen, pilots and captains have come and gone on the mv. Charles Southern, a 3,600 hp., twin-screw towboat owned by Sulphur, La.-based… Read More

David Wiley For David Wiley, the dream to work on the river started as a boy watching his brother-in-law work as a “deckineer” on the Tennessee River. “I lived right… Read More

Mike Fanshier After spending more than 30 years as a welder, Mike Fanshier was looking for a change. He found it as part of a new career at Riverview Tug… Read More

Vern Gore in the engineroom of the mv. Kevin Michael. (Photo courtesy of Vern Gore) It’s a rare feat for a single individual to be associated with the same towboat… Read More

Warren Clay “I started in June of 1980 when I stepped on my first towboat, and I’ve been here ever since,” said Warren Clay, shipyard project manager for Canal Barge… Read More

James Carnes Marquette Chief Engineer James Carnes comes from a long-standing river family, with a father and grandfather who were both river captains and pilots. But he resisted the river’s… Read More