Looking for information on C-MAR group

Does anyone have any information on C-MAR group?

Is this a maritime managament company that handles crewing and payroll for other company’s?

Are they somehow affiliated with Choest. I see alot of Choest boats on thier home page?

Is this the company that crews the Veolia offshore vessels, and has something to do with Helix?

Just curious I have never heard much about them, anyone have anything to say, good or bad. I see them advertising for crew on here and rig zone sometimes.

[QUOTE=ChiefRob;76446]Does anyone have any information on C-MAR group?

Is this a maritime managament company that handles crewing and payroll for other company’s?

Are they somehow affiliated with Choest. I see alot of Choest boats on thier home page?

Is this the company that crews the Veolia offshore vessels, and has something to do with Helix?

Just curious I have never heard much about them, anyone have anything to say, good or bad. I see them advertising for crew on here and rig zone sometimes.[/QUOTE]

No they look totally separate from ECO. http://www.c-mar.com/

C-Mar is a marine recruitment company. They are not affiliated with Chouest, tho they might have them as a client. They did have Helix as a client, I know because I wa employed by them on a Helix vessel for a while. I don;t know about Veolia, just that Veolia has never used Americans before if they could help it. I worked for C-Mar a few years ago and I’m working with them now. Basically, you are working for them as an independent contractor. You call them when you’re looking for work, they tell you what jobs they have available, you tell them which one you want. They will get you to/from the vessel. They pay on time, no hassles and they recently started a 401-k. No health insurance tho.
I like working for them for a few different reasons: I get to choose my own schedule (this is great as long as they have work to offer, not so great when things are slow), I get to “try before I buy”- I get to chose which companies and which vessels to go to work on so I can see what its REALLY like before I go trying to get hired on directly with the company, I only have to fill out application and take physical ONCE instead of doing it over and over for all the different companies out there, I don’t have to pay them to find me a job unlike lots of other crewing companies who are doing so illegally!
I’ll probably stick with them for a while (unless my PERFECT job pops up for me and not much chance of that). I also work for Oceanwide which is just about the same as C-Mar. As long as they can keep me busy, I’m happy freelancing. Its not good for someone who wants a lot of security, thats all I can say bad about working like this.

C-Mar is the child of a Rob Murray who has a pretty well established presence in the offshore world globally but they aren’t very big. Their office in the US is in Houston. They aren’t so much of a recruiter for offshore but rather more a temp agency. One of their biggest contracts in the US Gulf is to provide the hurricane masters on the ENSCO 8500 series rigs from June thru November. They also provide marine crews on the CalDive vessels but mainly with foreign nationals although they are trying harder to find Americans to place of those ships. Their person to contact for offshore position is Marcie Viator (Marcie.Viator@c-mar.com).

The pay is reasonable and they certainly offer a good fill in for work while waiting for the big job to happen but they really offer nothing on a longterm permanent basis.