“A good day at the office is when I run the simulators for several hours training students and help them learn their new trade,” says Patrick Zimmer.
“When I get to help students connect the dots, I see the lights come on their heads saying ‘Oh, okay, now I understand why the ship has a right-handed fixed pitch propeller or how the stern behaves on that ship.’ ”
Recently promoted to Director at the Texas A&M University Maritime Academy in Galveston, Texas, Patrick is responsible for the technology infrastructure and management of Cadet training in the operation and maintenance of ocean-going vessels. The training combines classroom learning and time aboard a ship to gain practical experience in seamanship, navigation, and engineering operations.
Cadets that graduate this program are licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard merchant marine as deck or engineering officers who transport goods in and out of the United States,” says Patrick. “But so very few people understand exactly what we do.”
“Moving goods by ship is many orders of magnitude more efficient than air, rail or truck. About 90% of everything that we buy as a component, commodity, partially finished assembly or finished product has travelled on a ship,” states Zimmer.
Cargo had been transported at sea by ships for nearly 7,000 years. And it is through trade by sea that people have connected to and explored all parts of the world almost from the dawn of civilization.
Patrick states that the modern globalization system was driven in part by the introduction of a standardised intermodal shipping container for commercial purposes developed by Malcolm McLean in the late 1950’s. This and other technological developments in shipping were instrumental in increasing globalization to the levels we see today. “Advances in fuel, propulsion technology, new shapes engineered for propellers, on-board technology, paints and lubricants,” Patrick indicates have all helped shipping become a driving force in globalization. It has also been lucrative for businesses as well.
“If we can generate a 2% increase in efficiency across the board for a single ship imagine what the monetary savings for a fleet of 300 ships would be. You're talking about tens of millions of dollars saved," stated Zimmer.
Although technology is certainly reducing crew sizes and making shipping safer and more efficient for ocean-going vessels,” he continued, “it will never completely remove the human being from the ship. It is the human being who makes critical decisions for regarding where do I direct a stream of water if I'm fighting a fire, how much more tension do I apply to a line above and beyond what the computer program says is safe.”
However, technology is and will increasingly be part of the training at the Maritime Academy. Patrick believes that the use of drones, sensor and other remote technologies are helping shipping get to the same point as other sectors of the economy.
“We now are able to monitor systems afloat from bases on shore and make basic configuration changes from locations several hundred miles away. We also know that when we don't see something, someone else might so there are there are advantages to the changes in technology.”
For Patrick, the bridge simulator is a powerful tool for training purposes. “I can take you for a tour of the world, on multiple types of ships, for multiple missions in multiple locations around the world in just two hours and never leave this room,” Patrick says with excitement.
“By doing this I don't need to have hundreds of millions of dollars worth of infrastructure. I don't need to place the environment or personnel at risk by having unlicensed cadets at the helm. I can give them real world scenarios and if they were to run aground, the only thing that we've damaged is their pride and that's something we can fix,” he states with a wide smile.
Even with an increasing emphasis on technology, there are other skills that are essential. “You need, first and foremost, to be an effective communicator. You need to understand various tenants of leadership and how to change tactics on a moment's notice. When dealing with personnel you need emotional intuition: understanding the look on the person’s face, their body language, the tone of their voice and assess this person’s condition,” he states.
Patrick says that cadets have to understand “basic engineering and physics, as well as celestial navigation, basic line handling, nautical knots, how to splice and handle lines and get your ship to the pier so you can off-load cargo.”
“When you are on the bridge, standing watch surrounded by 30 million dollars worth of equipment, shipping over a billion dollars worth of cargo,” Patrick visualises “none of that makes any difference if you cannot bring a ship into and out of ports. So you have to learn skills that have been used for thousands of years.”
Patrick takes great pride in the high quality training of the cadets at the Maritime Academy who “are ready from day one to be productive and help companies generate revenue and provide benefits to the local economies, near and far. We feed the world. We move the world. We help globalization develop to a further and further extent.”
In reflecting on his career and the students at the Maritime Academy, Patrick says he “learns as much every day as my students do and for different reasons. I learned that a long time ago that I'm happy in training development. When there are aspects of my systems I don't know, that drives me to be passionate to learn more about them.”
“I am continually challenged to be a master of the technology and to create more realistic experiences that are beneficial to the students and the Faculty who teach here. When I am able to deliver the highest quality product that I can, I take great pleasure in that.”
