2017 Scholarship Application
The Massachusetts Harbormasters Association, North Shore Chapter, is pleased to announce that again this year, we will be awarding a scholarship in the amount of $1,000.00. Due to the involvement of your community’s Harbormaster Department with our association, a senior student at your school may be eligible for this scholarship.
Please inform potential applicants in your graduating student body about the availability of this scholarship and furnish interested individuals with a copy of the enclosed application. We also ask that you let them know that this scholarship is available only to students pursuing a program of higher education in Marine or Environmental related fields.
Upon completion of the application, please include an essay of no more than five hundred words, a financial aid form, if applicable, the student’s grade point average, and class rank (furnished by the school). Please mail the completed forms to:
Ray Gauthier, 24 Chandler Road, Salem, MA 01970
Applications must be received by May 19th, 2017 in order to qualify.
Posted on March 15th, 2017 by Administrator in North Shore
Webb Russell Retirement
Please join the Marblehead Harbormaster staff for coffee at our quarters on Ferry Lane to say "so long" to Webb Russell on Wednesday, March 15th from 10:00 am to 11:30 am. He will be missed by all!!
Posted on March 2nd, 2017 by Administrator in Marblehead,North Shore
Changing waters in Marblehead
Harbormaster retiring, Beverly assistant taking over
KEN YUSZKUS/Staff photo – Webb Russell, left, a fourth-generation Marblehead resident and current harbormaster,
is retiring and handing the reins to Mark Souza, right, formerly the deputy harbormaster in Beverly.
MARBLEHEAD — It’s a moment of transition in more ways than one.
Webb Russell, a fourth-generation Marblehead resident who has been harbormaster since 2011, will retire March 15, coincidentally his 52nd birthday.
When he does so, Russell will transfer his talents to dry ground as he launches a land management business. Meanwhile, newly appointed Harbormaster Mark Souza, 48, will take over the department after more than a decade of work at the Beverly harbormaster’s office on the opposite side of Salem.
But it’s also a transition for the department from a ’Header at heart to someone new to the area. For Souza, Marblehead is wildly different from the more urban environment of the Garden City.
“Beverly, being a city, would have more of a population, but they’re not as involved with the actual sea,” Souza said. “Everybody has their foot in the water here, no pun intended.”
Russell has spent the better part of his life by the water, beginning his career right out of high school working in an area boat yard.
“Over the course of 20 years or so, I had every title, every position in the boat yard,” Russell said. “I got to know the harbor like the back of my hand, got to know all the boats, knew 70 percent of the owners — because they were customers.”
Eventually, that led him to join the harbormaster’s office and take on a more administrative role in the town’s waterways.
20-year wait for mooring
But as Russell’s life changed and his career grew, so, too, did activity on the water in Marblehead.
In the past 20 years, commercial fishing has taken a back seat to recreational boating, Russell said. In that time, the waiting list for a mooring in Marblehead Harbor has increased five-fold, from a wait time of four or five years in the 1990s to about a 20-year wait today.
“There’s about 1,900 people waiting for a mooring in this harbor,” Russell said. “We’ve been signing people off the waiting list that have been on it for 20 years.”
That’s in part because mooring holders handle it like many ’Headers do their hometown pride: they persist through generations, with what Russell calls “legacy moorings.” Fresh spots on the water just don’t open up.
“We’ll have some people who come in the day after a baby’s born to put their kid on the list,” he said.
Souza: period of learning
Now, the department will run under a harbormaster who is new to managing an operation of this size, though an old hand at boating.
“I grew up as a lake child in New Hampshire, sailing on lakes, boating,” Souza said. “Ever since I could swim, I was sitting on a boat.”
When he turned 18, Souza was more likely to be found in salt water rather than fresh, getting his hands on an 18-foot skiff and using it to catch tuna — “not the brightest thing,” he admitted with a laugh.
“The boat is the size of the fish you’re catching,” Souza said. “You’re catching very large fish in not-so-hospitable waters in that size boat.”
By 2006, with a captain’s license in hand, Souza arrived in Beverly. His selection as harbormaster in Marblehead came after an application process last October yielded 13 candidates.
Souza is already working alongside Russell to help make the transition as easy as possible.
“It’s hard to come in, unless you have the knowledge and training behind you,” Souza said. “The logistics of the harbor, comparably the numbers — the number of recreational boats, moorings, events involved in the harbor — are larger here than in Beverly.”
But he is taking a listen-to-all approach to his first weeks in Marblehead, and he expects that to continue going forward.
“The word ‘transparency’ is thrown around a lot. You try to be available and as transparent as possible, loving to learn,” Souza said. “You do the best you can, and I can offer the public that. But I work for the public and need to listen with an open mind to things.
“But at the same time, I need to be responsible for the safety of the public and the best interests of the town. To adjust to the local aspect of the things, I’m open-minded. It’s all learning mode.”
Posted on February 20th, 2017 by Administrator in Beverly,Marblehead,North Shore
2017 eBoard Nominations
The following are nominated for positions as officers on the North Shore Harbormasters eBoard, and also for representatives of the Massachusetts Harbormasters Association:
President:
Mounzer Aylouche, Swampscott
Vice-President:
Terry Kalil, Salisbury
Chad Johnson, Gloucester
Mark Souza, Beverly
Secretary:
Bill McHugh, Salem
Willem Van deStadt, Salisbury
Treasurer:
Patrick Mulligan
Mass Harbormaster Representatives:
Bill McHugh, Ray Gauthier, Chad Johnson
The NSHM Annual meeting: March 13, 2017
NSHM officers will be voted on at that meeting
Posted on February 12th, 2017 by Administrator in North Shore
Special NSHM Annual Meeting
NSHM Chapter Members:
Be advised with the attached letter we will be conducting another election of officers on March 13, 2017 at a Special NSHM Annual meeting.
This is an opportunity for members to consider running for a seat on the NSHM eboard and/or a position as a representative on the MHA.
Contact the Nomination committee members: Peter Silva, Andy Puleo & Ray Gautier if you are interested.
Read the letter here
Posted on January 21st, 2017 by Administrator in North Shore
Marine Fire Fighting Seminar, September 12, 2016
The Massachusetts Harbormaster Association applied for and was awarded a grant from the Humane Society of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts a grant to provide the harbormasters in Massachusetts with marine firefighting training.
Over 100 harbormasters participated in the training the week of September 12th. Four one day classes were conducted in Newburyport (1), Hingham (2) and Harwich(1) by Marine Firefighting Inc.
Small Boat and Marina Fires and Emergency Operations with Small Fireboats.
Photos from the North Shore Harbormaster Chapter
Posted on September 29th, 2016 by Administrator in Massachusetts,North Shore
2016 Scholarship Recipient
2016 Scholarship Recipient Victoria Rose Faith Kako
Posted on September 1st, 2016 by Administrator in North Shore
Gloucester Deputy Harbormaster Job Opening
Gloucester, Massachusetts has a job opening for Deputy Harbormaster. For information, see the Job Description
Posted on May 17th, 2016 by Administrator in North Shore
Gloucester Harbormaster Job Opening
Gloucester, Massachusetts has a job opening for Harbormaster. For information, see the Job Description
Posted on May 4th, 2016 by Administrator in North Shore
Massachusetts Harbormaster Association Annual Meeting
The Massachusetts Harbormaster Association Annual Meeting will be on Tuesday, January 28, 2016 from 9am – 2pm at the Black Falcon Terminal, Boston, MA.
Short business meeting, special guests – USCG, Environmental Police, DMF and many more Vendors
Lunch and coffee breaks included
Posted on January 16th, 2016 by Administrator in Massachusetts
