In his end of year address, president Gerardo A. Borromeo listed special projects for the InterManager Board's consideration.
Excerpts from Mr Borromeo's speech follow:
"As 2012 comes to a close I would like to thank you for your involvement and support of InterManager this past year. No doubt the shipping industry continues to be challenged on a number of fronts given the prevailing global economic overhang. Needless to say, shipping will continue to dominate the global landscape and I am confident that we will as an industry and an association pull together and ride out these challenges.
While we rely on heavy and expensive assets that create the means for shipping to proceed, it is the human side of shipping, our people, that provide the heart and soul of shipping. It is in this area that I hope InterManager will continue to pursue new initiatives that will help ensure a stronger image of the industry to help attract the best and brightest into the workforce of the future – be in on aboard or ashore in support of operations. To this end, several special projects will be put forth to the Executive Board for consideration including:
1) Short listing outstanding quality education and training institutions globally to which our members can work with to develop the future global maritime professional
2) Working with owners to provide adequate and timely berths on board for the needed competency building sea time
3) Developing flexible and workable budgets with shipowners to ensure that training needs are not unnecessarily compromised during the current challenging periods
4) Developing a range of Crew Surveys to help identify areas of focus that shipmanagers and crew managers should be working on in order to further effectively recruit, develop and retain quality professionals in the industry
5) Working closely with various international institutions such as the IMO to enhance the presence of the association providing a voice from managers on our views towards the industry
6) Developing strategic relationships with the Group of the Round Table in order to more effectively engage owners in discussions on areas of common interest and importance
7) Developing for our membership a Young Executive program to stimulate networking opportunities across the association membership for all levels of our member’s respective organizations and to bring in the next generation into the industry fold.
To this end a Special Projects group will be formed to help interface with members in order to best serve their individual interests as best as possible."