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EDITOR’S DESKAker Rhymes with “Soccer”In an extraordinary end to an unusually buoyant year for U.S. shipyards, a flurryof new blue water, commercial orders flooded into Tier I shipbuilders in the 4thquarter of 2013. As the year comes to a close, the biggest problem facing U.S.builders was solving the quandary of how to find, train and ultimately retain qualifiedshipfitters to toil on the vessels sitting on those fat backorder books. While these arenominally ‘good’ problems to have, they are problems nonetheless. Industry is, nevertheless,finding imaginative ways to adapt existing human resources models as a wayto cope. Within the pages of this edition, you’ll find out how and why.Small and large, brown water or blue water, East Coast, West Coast and Gulf Coast,everyone is busy. And, while the newbuild and replacement work going on in the OSVand inland sectors was perhaps easy enough to predict in a rebounding economy, theblue water commercial revival was not. U.S. yards are now accomplishing the seeminglyunthinkable: flourishing in an environment that does not necessarily include asteady diet of government, Coast Guard and/or Navy hulls.Leading the charge to redefine American shipbuilding is Aker Philadelphia Shipyardand its youthful CEO, Kristian Rokke. Riding an enviable backlog of pure commercial,deep draft hulls that stretches all the way to 2018, Rokke and his managementteam are not resting on their laurels. Nor have they forgotten from where theycame: the nadir of 2011, when their total workforce shrank to just 300 employees.The completely modernized shipbuilder – already negotiating for more options withexisting customers – has succeeded in this location where others could not. Utilizinginnovative partnerships, public/private financing and profit sharing deals, Aker gladlyshares risk with closely aligned customers. Arguably the model for the market that itserves, the story of Aker’s remarkable resurgence begins on page 32.Perhaps more interesting than the shipbuilding revival itself has been the seed fromwhich the entire upswing has emanated. The so-called ‘shale boom’ and the superchargedenergy production of the lower 48 states has changed not only global shippingpatterns, but also redefined demand for U.S. tonnage in any number of vesselcategories. Within these pages, Barry Parker’s simultaneous look at energy and shippingexplains how the equation of the energy transportation business and the countlessvariables that form the sum of its whole, are changing.Finally, I can’t look at success and the maritime markets without also noting thatthis edition marks our third full year of publishing Maritime Professional magazine.Our fully audited subscription list, coupled with the Web site of the same name, combineswith our in-depth coverage to create industry’s best business journal. As wetackle the most interesting and compelling aspects of today’s maritime markets, I’malso mindful that we need to raise the bar even further. That we have the opportunityto do that is in large part due to the support and input of readers – like you. Join us in2014 for more of the same.Joseph Keefe, Editor | keefe@marinelink.comDownload our AppiPhone & Android8 I Maritime Professional I 4Q 2013