Deepwater Rig and Kings Point

http://mediame.com/taxonomy/tags/michael_garin

Read at this link that a movie company is going to make a motion picture about the Deepwater Horizon rig. Might be a great opportunity for Kings Point to get its name out there, especially since Darin Rupinski helped saved lives based on the education and training he received at Kings Point.

Interesting read, not sure how close USMMA would like to put itself to the event, even if some heroic actions by alumni resulted. How did you find this of "Middle East Media"?

I would go see it!

I thought KP grads had to go to work for US companies?

He was working for Transocean , which is a Swiss company.

Luigi59 said:

I thought KP grads had to go to work for US companies?

He was working for Transocean , which is a Swiss company.

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Was it after the service obligation was up?

There was a thread on here a while ago that mentioned a graduate of USMMA who was working as Second Officer (Mate) aboard Cunard's Queen Mary 2. In that case, he started with Cunard after his service obligation had expired.

Deepwater Horizon is fairly "toxic" at the federal level. Plenty of political appointees restricting agencies from speaking about it. Not saying USMMA wouldn't, just think they might have to jump through hoops to please the wonks.

sprog said:

Was it after the service obligation was up?

There was a thread on here a while ago that mentioned a graduate of USMMA who was working as Second Officer (Mate) aboard Cunard's Queen Mary 2. In that case, he started with Cunard after his service obligation had expired.

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He is listed as a 2008 graduate. The incident took place in April 2010.

Graduate Service Obligation

Employment:

A graduate may fulfill the employment obligation portion of his/her service obligation in five ways as follows:

Serve in the foreign and domestic commerce and the national defense of the U.S. for at least five (5) years following graduation as:

1. a merchant marine officer in the U.S.
flag fleet;

2. a commissioned officer on active duty in
the U.S. Armed Forces or the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA) Corps;

3. with the federal Government in a maritime-related position that serves the
national security interest; or

4. if a determination has been made that
no afloat positions are available for you,
you may serve ashore in a U.S.
maritime-related industry, profession or
marine science.

5. By combination of the services specified
above.

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Ok. I didn't read the article. That is interesting.

There are several possibilities. One is that although the company is foreign it has subsidiaries that are US based and the ships are US flagged. (If you notice the requirement is US flagged, not US company).

There are many companies that are foreign owned that sail ships under the US flag (Maersk being one very large one)

The guy sailing for Cunard was well beyond his commitment I believe (2000 grad if memory serves me correct)

kp2001 said:

There are several possibilities. One is that although the company is foreign it has subsidiaries that are US based and the ships are US flagged. (If you notice the requirement is US flagged, not US company).

There are many companies that are foreign owned that sail ships under the US flag (Maersk being one very large one)

The guy sailing for Cunard was well beyond his commitment I believe (2000 grad if memory serves me correct)

Click to expand...

While Transocean is a Swiss company, their legacy and their defacto headquarters are here in Houston. That said, the HORIZON was registered in Majuro, Marshall Islands. The bulk of the crew, both marine and drilling (the offshore industry is structured a bit differently from the shipping industry) were, for the most part, American. I am not sure how this meets the US flag obligation, but there are many KP and other US maritime grads on US "owned" vessels. Other drilling companies have moved their main headquarters overseas. Nabors Drilling has been Bermuda based for a long time. ENSCO recently moved their headquarters to the UK. Both companies, however, maintain their personnel offices in the US.

With regard to the actual nationality of the company, the obligation is to work on US flagged vessels. Much of my time at sea was for a Scottish ship management company, but on the vessels that they operated under US flag.