Joe Goren, a longtime official with the Marine Cooks & Stewards (MC&S) who retired in 1980, passed away Feb. 17. He was 82.Goren, who grew up in Seattle, went to sea at age 17, joining the MC&S in 1938 on the West Coast. He sailed for the next 15 years, mostly as a chief steward and chief cook, and was a merchant marine veteran of World War II.
In 1953, Goren came ashore to work as the union's port agent in Los Angeles. He remained at that post for the ensuing 27 years, the last two of which followed the MC&S merger into the SIU in 1978. He retired to Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., and for many years kept in touch with the union through the hall in nearby Wilmington, Calif.
"He helped out very much with the merger, and he always worked hard and kept the best interest of the membership at heart," recalled George McCartney, retired SIU vice president West Coast. "Joe was a friendly guy. He was very active in the labor council, the state (labor) federation and the port council. He was good for the membership."
In the mid 1950s, Goren served as the first president of the San Pedro Port Council (which later merged with the one in San Diego). He later became active in the American Merchant Marine Veterans.
Goren once remarked that the transition from port agent to retiree had its difficulties -- mainly because he had been used to working at least six days a week, often for 10 hours a day or longer. "Retirement has been okay, but it has been a problem for an old work horse to slow down," he noted in the early 1980s.
Back in 1938, he probably couldn't have envisioned that his maritime career would last so long. During a 1996 interview with the Seafarers LOG, Goren remembered that when headed for the Seattle waterfront as a teenager, "The adventure of it led me there--kind of wanderlust, I guess. Plus my father died when I was 15, and I wanted to make some income for my mother. But I sure didn't think I'd stick with it my whole life."
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