Portland Oregon Maritime Work

Does anyone have insights into work in Portland as a mariner? I may be moving there and am not familiar with the industry there. I am looking at either local ship based work or shoreside work. Have master unlimited, towing endorsement, dp, security clearance, and working on a master’s degree in the transportation industry. Any insights would be much appreciated.

Shaver, Foss, Brusco, are the three I know off the top of my head. Your close enough to Seattle too…

I think the US Army Core of Engineers is hiring for their dredging ship. And I think Crowley may have some tugs in the area also. Not sure if any major commercial fishing vessels are based out of Portland, but Seattle is just 4hrs away.

spot on. the columbia river has alot of tug and barge work from those companies. should be plenty of hiring at all license levels

Not at all license levels. Those river companies promote from within. Lots of deckhands with licenses waiting for their shot. Master unlimited with no time on the river has a loooong slog to get into the WH.

Brusco has some longterm employees, but they also have a lot of turnover. They have a mix of new boats and old junk. It should be pretty easy to get a job at Brusco and move up fairly quickly. You might have to start on the outside boats.

Wilsonville Concrete Products was advertising jobs on the river for awhile.

Foss also had some ads for Portland.

Sause Brothers in Coos Bay is more of a coastwise towing company, but they might have some work in the river.

I see ads for shaver pretty regularly too. I’m not too familiar with the area but I’m sure if you have experience you can find something no problem…

there are 24 maritime jobs listed on zip recruiter some are shore side, port engineer and the like. Foss is looking for a launch operator and they have an apprentice program. even someone thats licensed could move up through such a program in no time.
quite a few listings with the army corp of engineeers.
If it were me and i wanted to live in Portland which has its up side and down. i would not limit myself looking for floating work only. once there and working you can start to network and see what else is available. such as through the port engineers society in portland.
down side in portland is that that the weather is bad alot of the time and their politics may not be comfortable for you. as i recall they had some riots there and burned down the police station.

anyway good luck