Foss reorganizes corporate structure to boost customer service
New structure effective January 1, 2007
JANUARY 17, 2007 – Foss Maritime Company – a Seattle-based marine services company with offices in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles/Long Beach (online at www.foss.com) – announced that the company has reorganized its corporate structure effective January 1, 2007 in order to better serve its customers. The reorganization marks a shift from a regionally organized company to a line of business structure.
With this new structure, the company is pushing for increased accountability and greater depth of experience in their customers’ industries, with single individuals responsible for each of the company’s major lines of business including: tanker escort and assist, container ship assist, ship bunkering, marine transportation, project cargo, shipyard and engineering services.
“Our customers are increasingly global. They have a need for services in many ports across the country and the world. We want to make it as easy and seamless as possible to work with us,” said Foss’ new president and chief operating officer, Gary C. Faber.
Foss announced that it was restructuring for the following reasons:
- To provide a focused and consistent emphasis on Foss’ Operational Excellence Core Values—including increased accountability to meet health and safety goals throughout the entire fleet—regardless of location.
- To give Foss customers a single point of contact for their business, regardless of geographic location.
- To provide a more open flow of internal communication and respond to recent results from Foss’ employee opinion survey that called for more open dialogue.
“I believe a functional, rather than a regional, organization will provide the greatest opportunity for us to achieve the desired results of greater customer satisfaction and better internal communication,” said Faber. “It underscores the fact that the company’s success depends on each employee—whether that employee is in Seattle or Houston.”
As part of the restructure, several new senior level positions were announced. Scott Merritt, Senior Vice President, will now head up the Domestic Services group. Other appointments in this group include Don McElroy, Senior Vice President Marine Transportation; Dave Hill, Vice President Harbor Services; Ric Gerttula, Director Contract Towing; Tim Beyer, Director Regional Towing; Ron Bates, Director Ship Assists; and Wendell Koi, Director Customer Service.
Charlene McArthur, who recently joined the company, will head the Management Services group as Vice President.