Merchant Marine Offers Alternative Lifestyle To Newtown Resident

By Nancy K. Crevier

His job has taken him to the Far East, from Singapore to the Japanese islands. He has visited Korea, Borneo, Ecuador, the South American west coast, northern Europe, the Mediterranean, and Puerto Rico. His job destination this past year was Hawaii. He works on average 90 days of the year and he takes the summers off .

It is the kind of job that sounds like a dream, and for Newtown resident Ken Moliver, his position as an operating engineer for the Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (MEBA) union of the US Merchant Marine has made that dream a reality for more than 25 years.

“The best thing about my job,” said Mr Moliver, “is that it ends on a regular basis. I’ve been semiretired my entire career. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s not a train running me over.”

Not to be confused with the US Marine Corps, The US Merchant Marine is an entirely separate branch of service. It moves merchandise on water from one port to another worldwide and on inland bodies of water, such as the Great Lakes. The US Merchant Marine Cadet Corps was established in 1938, but the industry has existed in the United States since colonial times.

Today, 99 percent of the world trade in food, goods, defense products, and other saleable imports and exports move by water, according to MEBA. The Merchant Marine is considered the country’s fourth arm of defense, and its vessels have served in every war and conflict providing military sealift power and delivering war apparatus to locations around the world.

Mr Moliver is a member of MEBA, which was established more than 130 years ago. According to literature provided by MEBA, the union presently has more than 6,000 marine engineers and deck officers and is the only marine union in the US Merchant Marine qualified to operate complex cargo control systems needed to move potentially dangerous liquid gas carriers.

Even though he grew up on Long Island, a stone’s throw from the US Merchant Marine Academy at King’s Point, N.Y., Mr Moliver was not aware of the existence of the Merchant Marine. When his college studies in electronic technology and engineering failed to yield a direction in life, he explored other options and was intrigued by the shipping industry.

Mr Moliver attended the Calhoon MEBA trade school in Baltimore in 1975 and has been a licensed engineer since 1979. The US Merchant Marine provided him with opportunities to build on his natural analytic skills and creative approaches to problems, he said, as well as the chance to travel the world with job flexibility that did not exist in other industries.

As an operating engineer on a merchant marine vessel, Mr Moliver is part of the crew responsible for maintaining and operating all of the machinery on board the ship. Analyzing situations that could leave the ship “dead in the water” and applying off-the-cuff solutions to problems that develop at sea are everyday realities of the 12- to 16-hour days that he spends on the water.

“We are trained to notice subtleties before they become a problem,” said Mr Moliver. Whether on board as a “watch stander,” working twice-a-day, four-hour shifts, or as a “day worker,” scheduled 8 to 5, the engineers are constantly checking machinery and must be on call to attend to any problems that arise.

Brainstorming solutions to mechanical difficulties that occur takes up a large part of the unscheduled hours aboard ship. Problems can range from the trivial to those that could threaten the safety of the crew and its cargo. At sea, the engineers must work with what they have on hand and they must work quickly to resolve issues that arise. (See related story.)

“Originally, I planned to [stay in the Merchant Marine] for three to five years, until I ‘grew up.’ Then I figured out I didn’t have to ‘grow up.’ I like tinkering and I like the diversity,” said Mr Moliver. “There are differences every day. I burn and weld and rip things apart and fix things. I meet different people and I get to see the world.

“I’ve learned to do things I can apply to other aspects of my life,” he continued. “Then after I finish killing myself for three months straight, I have the rest of the year off.”

In his early years with MEBA, Mr Moliver selected his trips based on where he wanted to go in the world. Once he married and began raising a family, he preferred quicker runs that departed from nearby New York ports.

The father of three children, Zack, a senior at Newtown High School, Shayna, a junior, and Alex, who is in the eighth grade at Newtown Middle School, Mr Moliver relishes the freedom his job allows him to spend time his family and his wife, Paula. The extended periods away from his family are a part of the job that they have learned to accept.

“It’s stressful when I come and go,” he admitted, “but the kids like it when I’m home. When they were really little, it was harder every time I had to go and when I came back after a stretch away.”

The long stretches of time at home also enable Mr Moliver to be involved in his children’s schools. “I’m a farmer,” said Mr Moliver. “I’m raising a family and that’s my crop.”

This winter, for example, he is in charge of the banquet video production for Newtown High School’s boys’ swim team. Other years, he has taught after-school courses for children. Along with his wife, he has produced, directed, and edited access television programs on Charter. Kids Cooking For Kids featured easy recipes for young people demonstrated by his daughter, Shayna. The Crafting Edge was another Moliver production. As a member of the Society of Craft Designers and the Hobby Industry Association, Mr Moliver is well versed to offer ideas to other crafters.

Mr and Mrs Moliver both design and create crafts ranging from hand-cut wooden ornaments to painting on silk. Their designs have been featured in several craft magazines over the years.

“I come back [from a trip] to the ‘honey-do’ list. I am never bored,” he said. “We always have something in the works.”

Time is also set aside each year to attend advanced training at Calhoon MEBA in order to keep up with the many new technological changes that can affect his work. It is this training, he believes, that contributes to the superiority of the US shipping industry, and as his whole family attends the camp with him, he is hard pressed to see a down side to the additional schooling.

The choice to work just three months each year means Mr Moliver must be diligent when he does seek work. A position on board is not guaranteed to every mariner.

“It’s up to me as a relief worker to decide when I’m going to go and to pick the job,” he said. “But when I decide to go out, I compete that day at the hiring hall for whatever jobs are available. I look for location, the crew, and how long the trip will last when I choose.”

Because of dwindling jobs on US ships, MEBA has instituted a system to limit the time anyone can stay at sea.

“It’s always about a 90-day stint,” he said. “In effect, four people share a job.” There is a method to navigating the hiring hall that takes time to learn, he said.

Knowing when to apply for work for optimum job choice is a game that any good mariner must know how to play, said Mr Moliver.

“Within the system,” he explained, “there are three groups. Kids just out of the academy must wait for groups one and two to choose their trips. The least desirable jobs are left for group three.”

It is only through time and experience that a person moves up to a higher level group.

“Mariners are still being trained, but not everyone who comes out gets to sail,” he said. Fewer positions mean fewer jobs at the hiring hall.

Changes Within

The Service

The Merchant Marine is not immune to change and over the quarter century he has been with the service, Mr Moliver has seen a number of changes that have affected the industry.

“The most dramatic change was containers,” Mr Moliver said. “We used to put bulk items into the cargo hold and brace it with wooden beams. There was actually a carpenter on board to take care of all of the building.” Once the ship arrived in port, the wood used to brace the cargo would be landed and recycled into wooden items by the locals. “Then it would be sold back to the merchants the next time we were in port. Scrapped ships were sent to Taiwan or the Far East, where the brass was melted down and turned into clocks and ashtrays and stuff like that, and resold. So, basically, we were buying back our own ships,” he laughed.

With the switch from secured bulk to containers, the turnaround for each trip changed significantly, Mr Moliver said. “We used to stay in port for days when it was bulk. Now it’s hours.” The shortened stays, unfortunately, mean that mariners have far less time to see the world than they once did.

When he is able to spend some time on shore, he looks to see how people live.

“I’m a walker. I’ll get a map and go. The first thing I do, though, is get a local person to write down for me where the ship is, in case I get lost. I try to experience the place and the people. It is getting harder to do that now. For example, on a 44- hour trip to the Mediterranean, we might spend just four hours in port. That’s not a lot of time to see anything.”

Containers have posed new security problems for shipping since 9/11. There is increased security at all points now, said Mr Moliver, but it is impossible to examine the thousands and thousands of containers shipped each day.

“Containers are randomly X-rayed, but we can only hope for the best.” He shrugged and added, “What can you do? It’s a part of our job.”

Stowaways have always been a part of the shipping industry, but the u pped security has created somewhat of a decrease in that activity, he said. There are new dangers to stowaways, though, with the advent of container shipping.

“The worst thing can be that sometimes food containers are fumigated,” he said. “There’s no way to see inside the container if someone is hiding in it. People have died, stowed away in food containers. It’s a horrible thing.”

The Future

As crucial as he sees the role of the Merchant Marine, Mr Moliver ponders the future of the US shipping industry.

“I see the Merchant Marine as a dinosaur industry, unfortunately. There will always be defense shipping but there is a trend to ‘reflag’ ships, to move everything offshore.” Reflagging a ship to another country can make a ship more profitable, he explained. “US companies have higher standards and that costs money.”

He noted that recently Mersck Lines, a Dutch company, bought SeaLands, one of the biggest US shipping companies left.

“They are still using US labor but they are no longer a US company. It seems that the number of ships I would want to work on is less each year.”

His observations are supported by data from MEBA. From 1970 to 1980, jobs with the US Merchant Marine dropped from 40,000 to 10,000 and the US-flag fleet lost 176 ships. Less than four percent of America’s exports and imports are carried on US-flag ships with American crews, reports MEBA.

The tendency to build larger ships that operate with less personnel is also affecting the face of the Merchant Marine.

“Now a ship might be built that is 1,000 feet long with a crew of 22, for example,” Mr Moliver said. “Before, a ship 600 feet long would need 40 to 60 crew members to operate.”

Historically, the Merchant Marine has met change head on, and Mr Moliver believes the service will continue to stay the course for the future.

“Being a merchant mariner has given me a greater appreciation of America,” he said. “For all the troubles here, I appreciate what we have.”