[dendrite9]

Interesting, out of curiosity is this a regional thing or a nationwide issue? What were businesses doing for the last X years to buildup qualified people to promote? Has anything changed to speed up the rate of retiring/dying or just a new limit on the rate of granting licenses?

A friend of mine moved from construction to working on a tugboat ~1.5 years ago and I spent a bunch of time talking about it this winter. Some parts of the business sound interesting but I'm not sure it is a good fit due to family health and relationships.

[mcculley]

There are a few trends working together. The two biggest are the demographic decline in the U.S. and the rollout of USCG Subchapter M, which increases demand. For example, some boats now require two captains on board for voyages over 12 hours where previously they would have used one captain.