RINA creates Giuliano Pattofatto scholarship

Italian classification society RINA has created a scholarship to honor the memory of Giuliano Pattofatto, technical director of RINA and former chairman of IMO's Maritime Safety Committee, who died last year. The scholarship will be awarded annually to a final year student in Naval Architecture at the University of Genoa. It will fund an internship at the International Maritime Organisation, to allow the student to understand the processes of international ship safety regulation. IMO's secretary general, William O'Neil, says, "I whole-heartedly welcome this scholarship. I shall be honored to support this initiative, which shows the commitment of IMO and RINA to enhance co-operation to promote safety of life at sea." Gaspare Ciliberti, president of RINA, says, "Giuliano devoted his life to enhancing international co-operation to improve safety at sea. This scholarship is one way that we can honour the debt shipping owes to him, and to help take forward his efforts." Giuliano Pattofatto graduated in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering in 1966. In the same year, he joined RINA where he rose to be deputy director general and technical director. He started participating in the work of the International Maritime Organisation in the early '70s and chaired various groups dealing in particular with fire safety and passenger ship safety. He was chairman of the Subcommittee on Ship Design and Equipment from 1990 to 1993 and chaired the Maritime Safety Committee (MSC) from 1994 until 1999. Under his chairmanship, the MSC carried out the preparatory work for the '94, '95 and '97 SOLAS Conferences. RINA is part of the Registro Italiano Navale group and is a Genoa-based classification society that was formed in 1861. It is a founding member of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). As at 31 December 2002 RINA classed 3,540 ships totalling 15,750 million gt.