What It Meant Then
The late Seafarers International Union President Paul Hall often is described as a visionary when it comes to the training facility that now bears his name.
Consider this, however, about such a label: It’s a compliment, but it also by definition means the seer views things very differently from those around him. Put another way, it usually means others are skeptical about the vision.So it was for Paul Hall, who inarguably fits the formal characterization —“a person of unusually keen foresight”—but who in the late 1960s may have been described by some people in different terms.
“To be honest, everyone at first had doubts about the school,” said current SIU President Michael Sacco, who was there from the beginning. “The membership didn’t buy into it right away, and the guys in the ports didn’t understand what we were trying to do. The isolated physical setting didn’t help with the general outlook, either."
“But Paul was committed to the school and he was a strong leader. He insisted that we had to upgrade the quality of our people so we could meet the challenges of the future—automation and other new technology. He kept saying we were going to do it until we got it right.
What is now the Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education opened in August 1967 in Piney Point, Md. as the Seafarers Harry Lundeberg School of Seamanship, named after the SIU’s first president. (Lundeberg’s name still is part of the school’s full, formal title, and the largest building on the main campus is named after him. The overall campus was named for Paul Hall in 1991, 11 years after his death.) Jointly administered by boards of trustees representing, respectively, the union and its contracted operators, the school had humble beginnings.
Make those exceptionally humble beginnings, according to others who were there when it opened.
The school featured a trainee program from its earliest days, but most people on campus spent those first few years building or rebuilding facilities at what had been a torpedo-testing facility run by the Navy.
It was grueling work, performed seven days a week, and merely mentioning it nowadays still elicits grimaces from the participants.
“We worked very hard and very long,” noted Chief Bosun Tom Soresi, one of the first people assigned to the school. “I really don’t know how all of us hung in there. Paul was a tough taskmaster, and back in those days when you looked around, there wasn’t much to look at. I came to Piney Point from Brooklyn and it was like a no-man’s land.”
Don Nolan, now vice president of the school, arrived there in 1968 straight out of the Navy. “I guess we didn’t know any better, but we worked seven days a week, 12- and 14-hour days,” he recalled. “This place was in shambles. We figured Paul Hall was either a genius or a nut.”
Paul Hall Center Safety Director Jimmy Hanson, who had an unforgettable introduction to the center in 1968, pointed out another characteristic of its dawning.
“It was a growing time for the school, and I soon found out that as an employee you would be called upon to do anything and everything from filling fire extinguishers to driving, painting, herding cattle, digging potatoes, carpentry work and the list goes on,” he said. “I have seen them put down asphalt in the snow and bulldoze part of a building while they were painting the other side.” (Hanson, having completed service in the Army, was working in the local volunteer fire department and seeking employment in 1968. He was instrumental in extinguishing a fire at the school, and was hired the same day.)
Not all of the challenges of that era were physical. Although the SIU dating back to the early 1950s had operated modest training centers in its halls in New York, Baltimore, Mobile, New Orleans and Houston, vocational schooling for mariners largely was an afterthought in those days—and academic pursuits were virtually unheard of.
Not surprisingly, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Seafarers were skeptical about the new school in Piney Point. Some were intimidated at the prospect of trying to pass a course, while others simply didn’t see the need for such a facility.
That’s where the “visionary” element resurfaces.
Students gradually warmed up to the school, for many reasons. The vocational training not only helped them do their jobs aboard ship, it proved indispensable in keeping up with rapidly changing technology. Many took advantage of academic support which bolstered their performance in the maritime-specific courses. Some even came to think of the campus as a home away from home.
Sentimentality aside, there was no disputing one key tangible benefit of training at the Paul Hall Center: It helped students increase their earning power as they amassed more skills and knowledge and improved their ratings.
“Everything that Paul envisioned for the school has happened—maybe even more than he expected,” said Sacco, who served as Lundeberg School vice president from 1968 to 1979. “Back then, the school property only contained old wooden military barracks, a two-story hotel and some piers. But Paul saw far beyond the limited accommodations. He believed that education was vital to members advancing themselves, and he understood the potential that existed at the school. He also had an all-consuming passion for helping Seafarers better themselves and improve their standard of living—and he knew that the school would be critical to making it happen.”
The SIU president added a strong word of credit for Hazel Brown, another school official from the center’s formative years. Brown wrote most of the initial curriculums, started the GED program and formally established the Lundeberg School’s working relationship with the American Council on Education, which justifiably boosted the center’s reputation.
“Hazel was an underrated figure in the school’s history,” Sacco said. “She brought a professional atmosphere to the school and helped refine it in many ways.”
Soresi said he still marvels at what the school has become.
“The truth is, what we have today, Paul envisioned 40 years ago,” Soresi asserted. “When you think about merchant seamen back then, everybody referred to us as drunks and bums and stuff like that. The thought of educating merchant mariners ... I don’t know how Paul thought of it, but he had that vision. And even though it was hard work, we had a lot of faith in his leadership and in the leadership of our other union officials.
“It wasn’t a very gratifying job at that time, but later on, when you saw what you helped develop, it all worked out.”
Nolan, who founded the school’s steward department training, remembered that when Hall was on campus, “he made things happen. He had a vision and he saw things we didn’t see, there’s no doubt about it. Piney Point was Paul’s dream.
“There are many others who deserve credit, too, and Mike Sacco is one of them,” Nolan continued. “He was the one who explained to members what the school was all about, and as you know, he’s a pretty convincing guy. And even back then, just like today, he would roll up his sleeves, jump in there and do whatever needed to be done.”
Why It Matters Now
Cutting-Edge School Characterized by Steady Improvements
The SIU-affiliated Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education (PHC) in Piney Point, Md. started some 40 years ago as a central location for providing qualified manpower to crew America’s merchant vessels.Today it is the largest training facility for deep sea merchant seafarers and inland waterways boatmen in the United States.
Recently, three individuals, each of whom personally has been involved with the school over the years, shared their views on how the institution has changed, what those modifications have meant and what the center is today. Lending their perspectives were recently retired PHC Director of Training Bill Eglinton, PHC Vocational Director J.C. Wiegman and SIU Assistant Vice President Contracts Archie Ware.
“The school essentially was established as the primary location to train a manpower pool to work aboard U.S. ships,” said Eglinton, who in 1973 signed on at the school as an instructor. “Its secondary purpose in those days was to serve as a hub where mariners could go—on a recurring basis—to improve on their skills and keep them updated.”
Over the years, the school’s basic mission has remained the same, but virtually everything else has undergone far-reaching transformation. Today, Eglinton said, the institution provides top-notch professional training to students who are just entering their maritime career, to mariners who wish to improve or upgrade their seafaring skills and to mariners who wish to retrain in their job classifications. Overall, the school continues to meet the ever-changing needs of the maritime industry—never an easy task, but particularly so in this era of unprecedented federal regulation.
“When I started there, we did not have formal classrooms,” Eglinton recalled. “We had barges—three of them. There was a hobby barge, a music barge and an upgrading barge.
“The vocational offices of the instructors were located on the upper deck of a small vessel called the Sonny Simmons,” he continued. “The classrooms were located down below. As far as the classes were concerned, there was lifeboat, lifeboatman and basic deck. Basic engine classes were conducted in the gutted-out engine room. So the trainees had classes aboard the Simmons and the upgraders had classes on the upgrading barge.”
Construction on the Logan and Drozak buildings, now full-time classrooms, began in the late 1970s. In 1983, the first shiphandling simulator was installed while basic and advanced computer training were offered for the first time. But the change that caught the eyes of most in Piney Point was the opening of the six-story, 300-room Seafarers Training and Recreation Center.
While the physical changes around campus are hard to miss, they haven’t been the only substantial transformations at the school, according to Eglinton. In particular, he pointed to the trainee program as an example of how the school constantly has grown to meet the needs of the individual mariner and the ship operator alike.
“The school went from being a 12-week mariners training regimen to an eight-month unlicensed apprentice training program,” he said. “The original trainee program was 12 weeks in duration. At the end of the 12 weeks, the trainees graduated and shipped out.”
Eglinton explained that early on, there was general consensus that while the program had its strong points, there was plenty of room for improvement, too. “There was no sea service, no going out aboard ships and no field trips,” he noted. “Those undergoing the training never really got a taste of what going to sea entailed. So when they graduated after 12 weeks they’d often go out on ships only to discover that they did not like what they were doing.”
Another concern with the 12-week program was that trainees—at the outset of their instruction and without any real knowledge of what their job would entail—had to choose which shipboard department they wanted to work in.
All of that would change in the mid-1990s with the amending of the Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW). “The convention actually was implemented in 1995 and came on-line in 1997,” according to Eglinton. “The timing was right. It provided a perfect opportunity for us to change our approach from a training program to an unlicensed apprentice program because the amended convention called for exactly what its name suggests: the establishment of standards of training, certification and watchkeeping.
“To meet those requirements and to continue fulfilling the school’s mission of turning out the world’s best-trained mariners, we went from a 12-week training program in 1967 to the unlicensed apprentice program in 1997,” Eglinton concluded. “We all are very proud of it, and I think the record speaks for itself.”
Wiegman said that besides the conversion of the unlicensed apprentice program, the biggest change during his tenure at the school to date has been the introduction of simulation. “When I came here there was no engine simulator. And the bridge simulator—while very good—still was a dinosaur,” Wiegman said. “It took a whole room of computers to make it work.
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“We now have a 360-degree fully automated bridge with three auxiliary bridges,” Wiegman continued. “We have multi-function classrooms with GMDSS, a radar, ARPA and an ECDIS Lab. Additionally, thanks to the simulation, we can train multiple platforms including cruise ships, tankers and containerships with scenarios in various ports around the United States. We also have the ability to convert the simulation to our inland members with Z-drive and conventional tug capability. We can train the entry level people to be look-outs. We can train the ABs to steer; we can train mates to perform all of their duties.
“In the engine room we can train QMEDs,” he continued. “On the engineering side, we have steam and diesel simulators to train our watchstanders and day-working QMEDs. We just recently added new containers and a refrigeration trainer along with cargo handling simulation including an LNG simulator for loadings and discharges of LG cargoes.
“When I started teaching here, we would draw out systems on the chalkboard,” Wiegman said. “Today, our classrooms have been upgraded with projection systems, computerized lectures and visual Power Points of the actual equipment aboard our vessels. Overall, the changes have been dramatic.”
Wiegman said that 40 years ago when the school was founded, he was at sea and crewing levels on ships were large, affording the mariner the opportunity to receive on-the-job training. “Crews had enough people to take the new OS under the AB’s wing and to teach basic skills. As the OS acquired sea time, he or she would see the school for the first time to get training as a lifeboatman and AB. They would take a U.S. Coast Guard exam to acquire their rating and the school provided great training so the members could achieve their goals. What has changed over the years is a reduction in crew size and the introduction of automated systems requiring a better trained member.”
Wiegman said technological advances also have had the overall effect of reducing crew sizes aboard vessels, noting, “Today when someone goes on board a ship they have demonstrated competency and have been assessed in the tasks they may be required to perform. So when we look back at the school’s history, it has evolved to meet the needs of the members and our companies by constantly upgrading the facility from a trainee program, then adding inland programs and expanding with an undergraduate degree program in nautical science or maritime engineering.
“In addition, the implementation of the Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) made a difference,” he continued. “This probably has had the biggest impact on mariners and the method in which they are trained.”
The unlicensed apprentice program is a good example, he said. “A person comes here, learns some skills, does some assessments, goes out as a student observer for a while and then he comes back here to school for more skills and assessments. He then goes back out to sea again and returns here for a rating. And the process does not stop there. He continues acquiring more and more skills so that he becomes more qualified.”
Wiegman said that without the Paul Hall Center, the cost to the mariner for his training would become quite significant. “In a nutshell, a mariner’s ability to advance becomes extremely limited without the school,” he concluded. “Without this school and this organization, mariners would have to pay astronomical costs for courses or acquire scholarships from some entity to be able to afford to go to sea.”
Ware recalls that living conditions at the school in years past were a far cry from what they are today. “During those days there was no hotel,” said the union official and former recertified bosun who attended the Piney Point-based institution in the ’70s. “We all had to stay in bungalows. Now the school has accommodations to the extent that people have their own rooms. I think that arrangement can only help students get the most out of their classes.”
Commenting further on living conditions, Ware noted that the school used to rely on its nearby farm. “We used to get a lot of our food from the farm—fresh meat and produce,” he said. “Now they have vendors bringing in everything. It’s a similar situation with laundry. In the past you had to drop your laundry off by a certain time and pick it up by a certain time; today you can do it yourself whenever you want.”
As a whole, Ware said the changes he has seen at the school all have been extremely positive. “They have played a significant role in making the school the highly recognized and respected institution that it is,” he said.
Still, Ware believes that there has been one aspect of the school that has remained constant throughout its history. “There have been various changes at the school, but the best trained sailors still come from Piney Point,” he said. “The Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education is an excellent school and a great vehicle for anyone wanting to become a merchant mariner.
“The SIU has been successful since its establishment but the school has made it even more so,” Ware concluded. “Through it, the union is able to consistently turn out the most safety-conscious, efficient and best-trained mariners in the world. All of the shipping companies are aware of this, and that’s why SIU mariners continue to be a hot commodity and in such high demand.”
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