The Fan(atic)

He loved Maritime Reporter so much that he failed a class project for it. Yes, it's true that when he was an eighth grader in Boston, Brian Fournier sadly realized that he received an "F" on a book report that he had written on MR for his English class. Fournier didn't receive his failing grade for his lack of knowledge on the subject or for "lying his way through the assignment" as his teacher thought. He did everything he was supposed to do - he read the material thoroughly sometimes six or seven times over, he had the basis of the industry down pat and he chose something that he was interested in. It was only until he realized that his "book" did not suit the task at hand. According to the future tugboat company president's teacher, the reason behind his unfavorable grade was simple - Maritime Reporter was not a book. Even though his teacher didn't see MR as a book, Fournier would emphatically disagree, for he regards it as his bible. It was through the magazine that Fournier would learn and absorb all the information he could about an industry that is and always has been the center of his family life. Fournier boasts that he holds every issue of MR that has been published since he was born on September 29, 1970. For the past 29 years, he gained his know-how and knowledge not by reading books, but by leafing through the pages of MR and working on his dad's tugboats. His father, Arthur Fournier has been an instrumental force in the tugboat industry since purchasing his first tug for $1 in 1953. After buying and selling a variety of tug companies in Boston, the elder Fournier relocated to Maine where he started Portland Tugboat in 1985. Though his father was in Maine most of the time working on the family business, Fournier would look forward to those times when he and his older brother, William would sit with their dad as he enlightened the boys with stories of his days on the tugs. "My dad would get home from work and he would take out MR and show us pictures of different engines and ships," reminisced Fournier, who joined the family business in 1989. "He would quiz both of us by asking us to name the type of engine or ship that we saw in each photo." Those lessons with dad were probably the reason why Fournier, is where he is today - a licensed Captain since 1994, and president of his father's company, Portland Tugboat since 1995. MR and cold Sunday dinners - A perfect match Through the years, the Fournier family would spend Sunday afternoons stopping by the docks to check out the tugboats and then heading over to Grandma Catherine Fournier's home in Boston for dinner. If anything, it wasn't the food that Fournier would remember about those afternoons, but the times that he would sit on his grandmother's stairs and engross himself in the latest editions of MR that she had saved for him. "I would spend hours sitting on those stairs with a stack of magazines," said Fournier, who cites the Navy Annuals of the 1980's as his favorite issues," while my friends were reading sports magazines, I was picking up the latest editions of MR." Since he had so intently been reading his MRs, he would completely forget about the time and would have to face a cold Sunday dinner - a small inconvenience for being able to read about what he dubs as his "livelihood." Years later, it was Fournier's grandmother, who once again provided him with his livelihood - even after her death in 1993. As he sifted through her belongings, Fournier found a big cardboard box that looked as though it had been collecting dust - knew he hit pay dirt when he discovered it was filled with old issues of MR. As he moved on to high school, he tried once again - and succeeded - in incorporated his love for the magazine into another class project - a collage for art class encompassing various naval ships and tugs pasted together. The 1980's also brought tragedy for the tugboat-oriented family, as it was on April 11, 1985, that Fournier's older brother, William, 20, died while trying to rescue one of his crewmembers from suffocating in the tug's hatch. When the crewman hadn't returned, William went to look for him and passed out - eventually succumbing to lack of oxygen - just as the crewman had. A news item that ran in the June 1985 edition of MR mentioned William's heroic efforts, as well as his accomplishment of sailing a jack-up barge from Louisiana to the Dominican Republic at just 18 years-old. "I was proud that MR did that for my brother," Fournier quietly said. The Fournier Tradition Continues Today, as president of the family business that his father has built upon through the years, Fournier owes much of his love for tugboats and the sea to his "industry bible." Even though he should have been studying instead of reading MR, he was only contributing to one thing in his life, besides his family that is important to him - his dedication to the maritime industry. "I was brought up to love tugs and the maritime industry," he said. "Not only is it my livelihood - it's my life."