Well I didn’t get to keep it, but it just showed you that they fully expected to pass you.
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It’s sounds like we’ve been to the same schools because it has happened to me a few times. Not always on Monday morning, maybe Wednesday, Thursday or Friday morning before the test. I think sometimes the logic was the lady who prints & keeps up with the certificates didn’t work on Friday because it was a short day. Or if the school was legit with being 40 hours long she would take off early on Friday before the test were taken or certs handed out. But same difference, they knew the paying customers were going to get the certs. A school will go out of business if they gain the reputation of being too hard or for failing dumbasses.
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That won’t happen though it should. Fraudulent sea time letters were rampant during the OSD boom. Especially among engineers though maybe among deck too, I am just not familiar with that. The regulations state that you must serve one year AS a first engineer on a vessel REQUIRING a first engineer while holding a first engineer license before you can become chief. I ran across way more than one engineer with a chief’s license who had never worked above a 2nd engineer position according to their employment records. I asked them where they worked as 1st to qualify for a chief license as I don’t see it on your record of employment. There was a lot of uh, uh, uh, you know how it is…When I asked who signed the sea time letter they invariably said, “The captain.” I’d ask why the captain would do such a thing and risk prosecution. You two really close? Did he owe you money?
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As far as pre-printing the course certificates goes; I would venture to say it is far easier to tear up certificates for those few who didn’t pass than start making them for everyone after the final tests were completed grades compiled. Those Fridays can be hectic with multiple classes ending and prep started for the next round of classes due to start.
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I’ve seen really clueless people in class that flunked the exam on the first try, but miraculously managed to pass on the second try when they were alone with the instructor in the exam room.
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Don’t ask, don’t tell, I didn’t see anything, wasn’t there & no child left behind. Now let him drive the boat & we all live happily ever after.
I upgraded a few times while Ms Holly was there in N.O. Nothing was given away in my experience with that lady… Missed one exam by five points, she said study a bit harder, you are close. Did what she said, hit the books, and came back a few weeks later. Passed the particular exam and saw her later that day going for a late lunch. I thanked her for encouraging me to not give up. She never asked me for a frigging dime, before or after. That lady was straight as an arrow, and gave a shit about the mariners that worked for it. P.S. I did not attend the school a few floors down from the testing center, studied while on the vessel.
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The late Deborah Myers of the Charleston REC was like that. She was a great chief and by the book but she was a friend to the mariners.
Not one of the names listed are bayou boys. Looks like all yankee names to me. I don’t see any good ole boy Cajun names like Cheramie, Boudreaux, Broussard, LeBlanc, Guidry, Thibodeaux , Breaux, Bourgeois, Bergeron, Bordelon, Benoit, Theriot, Melancon, etc on the list.
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You’re missing the most important part of this story
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HARRY JOHNSON def from the bayou
If it’s the Harry J I know of he is from Fl. Glad they all got caught. I heard rumors at least twice when I worked in the gulf that it was going on when the rec was in New Orleans. I thought it was a rumor but guess it was not. I had a run in with one of the CG employees listed in the report about 18 years ago. She argued that I had too much deck time to get my engineers license. All my seatime was wiper and Qmed. She tried to argue that wiper was a deck position. She was not the sharpest tool in the shed so I was suprised to see her name.
Funny thing is, everyone talks crap about the state academies and KP, but you can and every year people absolutely do fail out of them. No hawsepiper EVER fails out of the local “maritime” schools. If you pay, you pass. Been that way at every single one I’ve been to around the country.
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This has absolutely zero (0) to do with any company. This was a couple people at the REC that wanted some extra dough and a few individual mariners that didn’t want to put in the effort to be able to pass the tests. Who approached who first? IDK.
There are no fake seatime letters or some corporate conspiracy. This was a group of individuals with low moral and work ethics. If there are a few at one company or another it’s because one guy let his buddy in own the scheme, who then let his buddy in on it and so on.
This is not a bayou thing either. One guy (who’s on the list) was unceremoniously pulled off the boat over a year ago for this and he was not anywhere close to being from the bayou.
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When I worked for ECO back in the day, They had one unlimited tonnage vessel in the fleet, and the word was that they would never build another.
It was not a secret that the office would write you seatime on that vessel whether you worked on it or not. This allowed mariners to get licenses that they shouldn’t. The REC knew about it and eventually wrote a letter telling them to stop the practice.
There is a company in NY that has one vessel that is over 100grt. There at least they rotate interested guys through that boat so they legitimately get their time.
I want to say sometime in the 90s the USCG did a few audits of mariners seatime letters, going so far as to check the logs on the supposed boats. I heard that a few guys lost their tickets.
If true it is not surprising. But it is a testament to the return on investment of campaign contributions that ECO was never prosecuted. ECO has made themselves wealthy via the oil business good ole boy network and government contracts; they also became bullet proof from prosecution due to political contributions. From a taxpayer funded 42 million dollar shipyard for a Chouest shipyard [after a 1 million dollar political contribution] to minimal consequences for dumping waste oil overboard in Antarctica to the Aiviq incident in Alaska. Chouest knows how to play the political game. Once they figured out how to play that game they quickly went from little Edison Chouest Boat Rentals to a major player. They get a heck of a return on their investments in politicians.
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Have to ask…if they only have limited tonnage vessels save for one…:why would they care to help all their mariners get unlimited license when all it would result in is their employees leaving the company for other gigs?
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Many did leave.
Aren’t people in the USCG payed a somewhat decent salary with a pension?
I can understand this kind of thing happening in less developed countries like Russia or Ukraine where people are paid hardly anything and have small pensions, but it’s surprising coming from a developed country. Most of the time the risks vastly outweigh the benefits.
If you want to keep a country developed you need to punish corruption in government institutions severely.
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Exam room staff at RECs are usually GS-7, about $45K/year. If you stayed at that for 20 years and reached age 62 your pension would be about 25% of that.
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