Florida Marine Christens Second Batch of New Boats - November 28, 2006
A high-ranking official from the New Orleans Archdiocese may have said it best when he thanked Florida Marine Transporters for the firm’s commitment to the city and to its people.
Speaking at the christening of three new Florida Marine towboats that he blessed November 28 at the Riverfront Hilton, the Rev. William Maestri told the crowd that much of the country has written New Orleans off, sure that it’s not going to come back. Through the efforts of companies like Florida Marine, though, the city “is back,” he said, “whether people like it or not, and that’s a fact.
“That’s a fact,” he repeated, “because (people like those at Florida Marine) have the ability to go on. We will continue to grow and develop and we will actually be better than we were before.”
There is little doubt that New Orleans will “be better than before” if its growth and development is anywhere near as robust as Florida Marine’s, an observer noted. The company had 30 single-hull tank barges and nine pushboats when a former employee, who began as a deckhand at the age of 17, leveraged his ownership in a boat and invested his life savings to buy it in 1999.
Today, Dennis Pasentine and his dynamic firm are currently in the midst of what is likely the largest continuous tank barge and towboat building program in recent history. The barge fleet has grown to include 135 new, double-hull, 30,000-barrel tank barges with 45 to come, and Florida Marine has to date received nine new towboats of an unprecedented 25-boat run.
