Pascoe Appointed Chief at LISCR

The Liberian Registry has appointed Captain David Pascoe as Chief, Maritime Operations & Standards. Pascoe will have overall responsibility for Maritime Safety, Security, Investigations and Marine Technical and Communications for the world's leading ship registry, and will replace Captain John Deleonardis, who has retired. Yoram Cohen, ceo of LISCR, which manages the Liberian Registry, says, "We welcome this experienced mariner into a tough job. He has a hard act to follow, maintaining our record as the safest and highest quality major ship registry. This year again Liberia is by far the largest register in the top ten of the Paris MOU rankings, with a much stronger safety track record than most national flags It is relatively easy for a small register in Europe to manage quality, but it is much more of a challenge to do that for a global register of our size. We will give David Pascoe all the resources he needs to maintain and strengthen our leading position, which is built on an unremitting focus on quality by both LISCR and the high-calibre owners who choose our registry. " David Pascoe has nearly thirty years of professional experience in maritime safety and environmental protection, the majority of which were with the US Coast Guard. While in the Coast Guard, he served as Captain of the Port/Officer in Charge Marine Inspection, directing maritime safety, security, environmental protection and port state control activities for vessels and ports in Maine and New Hampshire. He was also the director of the USCG National Strike Force where he directed the activities of all Coast Guard Strike Teams in responding to national and international oil and chemical spill incidents, port contingency planning and exercises. Pascoe has over ten years' experience with the United Nations International Maritime Organisation (IMO), including formulating and negotiating US environmental policy, and has chaired Working Groups, as frequent delegate to IMO's Marine Environment Protection Committee. He also served a two-year secondment as IMO's Senior Adviser on Marine Pollution and Director of IMO's Oil Pollution Co-ordination Centre during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Pascoe says, "From my experience with port state control and the IMO, I know the high standards that the Liberian Registry delivers. I'm looking forward to the challenge of my new role in helping run a first class registry." In the recently released 2002 report of the Paris Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control, the Liberian Registry has once again underlined its reputation for the highest standards of safety and efficiency by retaining its position as the best-performing major ship register. With the introduction of more selective targeting, expanded inspections and new banning provisions, the Paris MoU is moving towards a zero-tolerance policy. It ranks individual flags in Black, Grey and White Lists, based on their performance over a three-year rolling period. The Liberian Registry is consistently in the top ten in the prestigious White List, with a significantly superior performance compared to registers of comparable size. Liberia is similarly ranked by both the Tokyo and the US Coast Guard's Port State Regimes. Cohen says, "Given the size of the Liberian Registry, which is the second largest in the world, and the high number of European port calls made each year by Liberian-flagged ships, there can be no doubting that Liberia's reputation for safety and efficiency is well-deserved. And we welcome third-party endorsement of that from such a widely respected source as the Paris MoU. "The Paris MoU has gone on record as saying that shipowners who register ships under flags appearing on the black list may find that it is more profitable to operate under quality flags or have their ships scrapped. We can only endorse those opinions. There is no room for compromise on safety, and the information is in the public arena for discriminating owners to see."