Tom Crowley Jr. and Captain Timothy Brown to Receive 2002 AOTOS Awards Presented by United Seamen’s Service

(New York; Nov. 5, 2002) – The 2002 Admiral of the Ocean Sea Award will be presented by United Seamen’s Service to Thomas Crowley Jr., Chairman, President and CEO of Crowley Maritime Corporation, a multi-faceted maritime company serving among others, liner, towing, and tanker trades, and to Captain Timothy A. Brown, International President of the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots, ILA, AFL-CIO.

The maritime industry’s most prestigious honor will be awarded at a gala industry dinner and dance to be held at the Sheraton New York Hotel and Towers, New York City, on Nov. 8, 2002.

In addition, a special AOTOS will be given to Talmage E. Simpkins, President of United Seamen’s Service (USS), for his two decades of service to the non-profit organization. C. Peter Lambos, a maritime attorney prominent in waterfront labor negotiations, will receive a special AOTOS recognition. The announcements were made by John Bowers, Chairman of the USS AOTOS Committee, and President of the International Longshoremens Association, AFL-CIO.

“Two distinguished and accomplished American maritime industry supporters representing labor and management have emerged to share in the honors AOTOS bestows. They have been selected by those who know them best, international transportation leaders who understand very well the challenges and issues which confront United States shipping and the American seafarer,” Bowers said.

Brown and Crowley led the field of nominees for the award, sharing first place among a group, which was solicited by USS from more than 160 maritime management, labor, and government officials. All proceeds from the event benefit USS community services abroad for the U.S. merchant marine. This years AOTOS recipients embrace two of the most important sectors of ocean transport in the United States: the carrier community and labor.

Like his grandfather and father before him, Tom Crowley Jr. got his start in the family business at an early age. Young Tom will be the second Crowley to receive an AOTOS, joining his father. Crowley was 16 when he first started working as a ticket collector for the company’s San Francisco passenger service, the Red and White Fleet.

After graduating from the University of Washington with a business degree in finance, Crowley became the first person sent through the company’s management training program. The training taught him even more about how the company operates and how its many businesses interact.

Crowley’s first assignment was to supervise stevedores at the firm’s Jacksonville port terminal. Later he became general manager of the Red and White Fleet. Soon after, Crowley’s father, who was 77 at the time, approached him about the question of who would succeed him in running the company. The senior Crowley wanted to pass the reigns to his son just as his father and company founder, Thomas Crowley, had done to him.

In 1994, Tom Crowley Sr. passed away and Crowley Jr. became CEO at the age of 27. He was well prepared. As assistant to his father, who was President and COO at the time, he attended weekly corporate meetings and board of director meetings, learning in depth about the overall operations of the company.

Today, Crowley directs a company with more than $1 billion in annual revenues and approximately 4,000 employees and 300 vessels around the world. The corporation is engaged in worldwide logistics, liner cargo services, contract towing and transportation, energy support, ship assist and escort, petroleum and chemical transportation, salvage and emergency response, vessel design/build technical services, fuel retailing in Western Alaska and ship management.

During the past eight years, Crowley has worked to expand and position the 110-year-old company for success in the 21st Century. Among his achievements during his tenure as CEO, Crowley has aggressively directed efforts to preserve the Jones Act; spearheaded a management re-engineering, invested in cutting edge technological advances; completed the sale of non-core businesses, and expanded into logistics services and breakbulk and petroleum transportation. Crowley has also launched the largest vessel fleet revitalization in recent industry history with the construction of 26 new tugs, including the most powerful cycloidal-propulsion tugs in the world.

In 2001, Crowley led the company’s acquisition of Marine Transport Lines (MTL), the oldest shipping company in the U.S. with origins dating back to 1816.

Tim Brown is currently serving his fourth term as head of Masters, Mates & Pilots (MM&P). He was initially elected as International President in February 1991 in an interim election, and was subsequently reelected in 1992, 1996 and 2000. As MM&P President, Tim Brown also serves as an International Vice President of the MM&P’s parent organization, the International Longshoremen’s Association, AFL-CIO. Prior to coming ashore, Brown sailed as a ship’s Master with Sea-Land Service, Inc., from 1983 to 1991.

Tim Brown began his sailing career as a ship’s officer with the MM&P in the summer of 1965, following graduation from the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y. He obtained a Master’s Degree in Accounting and a Master’s of Business Administration specializing in Labor Relations from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1974.

A native of Cleveland, Ohio, Captain Brown lived in Tampa, Fla., for 13 years prior to his election as MM&P International President. At that time he relocated to the Baltimore, Maryland, area where the Union’s headquarters is located.

Tim Brown devoted a great deal of time and energy to the enactment of U.S. maritime industry revitalization legislation, which culminated with the passage of the Maritime Security Act in 1996. He is continuing his efforts along with other maritime unions, both licensed and unlicensed, to put in place a new Maritime Security Program in an effort to buoy up the United States merchant marine, to more effectively compete with foreign competition.

More recently, Tim Brown has turned his focus to legislation which would provide to U.S. citizen merchant mariners the same income tax exclusion provided to other U.S. citizens working abroad, as well as supporting legislation which would allow American maritime companies to compete in the global marketplace on the same footing as do the companies of other maritime nations. He is working to bring U.S.-flag, U.S. citizen crewed ships into the cruise industry and is seeking ways to allow United States shipyards to better compete with foreign yards in order to build new passenger, container and product vessels.

A friend to many in the industry, it has been said that “if you get 20 people together, Tim Brown will tell them more than they ever wanted to know about the Merchant Marine.”

Talmage Simpkins has been president of United Seamen’s Service since 1988. Active in labor/management affairs in Washington, D.C., almost since graduation from the University of Maryland in 1952, Simpkins held various executive level positions with the AFL-CIO Maritime Committee, Labor Management Maritime Committee, and as Washington representative for the National Maritime Union.

He is presently Executive Vice President of the LMMC and Executive Director of the AFL-CIO Maritime Committee. During his presidency of USS, he has traveled throughout the world working on improving and building facilities and services for American seafarers and those of other maritime countries.

“Tal Simpkins’ commitment to the lot of the seafarer has been marked by a half-century of dedication–both in his career and in his volunteerism,” said Edward Morgan, Chairman of the USS Executive Committee. “This special AOTOS is long overdue to recognize his dedication and success.”

The special recognition plaque to C. Peter Lambos acknowledges the role of this prominent maritime labor and employment lawyer who has represented management since 1971 in its contract negotiations with the longshoremen. Lambos, a partner in Lambos and Junge, was involved in formulating at the collective bargaining table innovative responses to the challenges wrought by containerization, and has successfully argued before the Supreme Court.

Recently, he was instrumental in the restructuring of the major management and containerization associations on the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts to make terminal operators and port associations more effective in obtaining operating efficiencies.

Captain Robert Hart, USN (ret.) will be serving as National Committee Chairman. Other committee members and chairmanships will be announced shortly. The four distinguished guests will share their evening with a group of American seafarers who will be honored for their heroic efforts at sea. USS continues to provide community services for the U.S. Merchant Marine, the American Armed Forces, and seafarers of the world. USS, a non-profit agency established in 1942, operates centers in ten foreign ports in Europe, Asia, Africa and in the Indian Ocean, and also provides seagoing libraries to American vessels through its affiliate, the American Merchant Marine Library Association.

For more information about Crowley, visit www.crowley.com.

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