ASA Names New 2013-2015 Officers

MarineLink.com September 30, 2013

Paul Hankins: Photo credit ASA

The American Salvage Association (ASA) elected a new slate of officers at its fall meeting on September 9 in Arlington, Virginia, as follows:

Paul Hankins, Vice President for Salvage Operations at Donjon Marine Co., Inc., was elected President, succeeding Tim Beaver, Global Diving & Salvage, Inc., who served as President from 2011-2013.
Todd Schauer, Resolve Marine Group, was elected Vice President, and
Jim Elliott, T&T Marine Salvage, Inc., was named Secretary/Treasurer.

Paul Hankins has over 30 years’ experience in the marine industry after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1981 with a Bachelors of Science in Naval Architecture and from George Washington University in 1991 with a Master’s degree in Environmental Management. He has participated in countless national salvage and oil spill response operations and exercises and has held positions with the Navy SUPSALV; with SERVS Alyeska in Valdez, Alaska; as Deputy Director of Maritime and Land Security at the U.S. Transportation Security Administration; and as president of Donjon-SMIT.

In addition, David DeVilbiss (Global Diving & Salvage, Inc.), Robert Tyson (Svitzer), George Wittich (American Marine Corporation), were elected to ASA’s Executive Committee. John Cameron (Charleston Pilots) was elected chairman of the Associate Membership Committee, and will serve on the Executive Committee in that capacity.

“I am very pleased to head this new team of impressive leaders in the salvage industry, as we work to continuously improve marine casualty response while protecting people and the environment,” said Hankins. “Tim Beaver has been a tireless leader for ASA for the past two years. We owe him a huge debt of thanks for his service to our members and to the salvage industry,”

“I expect that ASA will be very active in the next couple of years as the new regulations for non-tank vessel response plans are implemented, and we continue to work on obtaining responder immunity, environmental protection, and other challenges in the salvage industry like those presented by Arctic response and megaships,” Hankins added.