When you’re out in the vastness of the open ocean on a Guice Offshore (“GO”) supply vessel or mini-supply vessel, you can feel safe knowing that our team of experienced professionals like Tim Lewis is behind the scenes making sure our GO crews are well-rotated and rested in order to navigate missions that can encounter tough maritime conditions like rough weather.
Lewis, who serves as Guice Offshore crew coordinator and in-house recruiter, manages air traffic-control-like logistics to make sure our GO fleet is fully staffed, transported to and from their jobs, and adherent to a set schedule that ensures they’ll be in top mental and physical shape to perform their duties.
Depending upon the type of vessel, Lewis will change crews and generally manage the time for Guice Offshore personnel who staff the GO fleet. At any given time, a GO vessel may be anywhere in North or South America, in the Atlantic or Pacific oceans, or the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean Sea.
Indeed, managing the comings and goings of people on a fleet of offshore supply vessels in two hemispheres can be head-spinning.
As a recruiter, Lewis has been feeling current voids in a job market where fewer have been applying for highly specialized and often technical jobs aboard Guice vessels.
Each vessel requires a fully manned crew and all members must work together, Lewis explains. The hardest job on any Guice boat is that of the captain, who sometimes must even pitch in to do deckhand work. Along with finding available captains, he notes that marine mechanical engineers are in short supply.
With technology having rapidly transformed marine mechanics, Guice Offshore recruits must be increasingly knowledgeable. Even for experienced deckhands, being able to work successfully aboard a modern offshore supply vessel like a GO boat requires a learning curve.
“But we’ll certainly take inexperienced deckhands,” Lewis says. “If you’re willing to learn, not lazy and you listen well, the captain will take you under his wing and teach you.”
Lewis, who himself began his career as a “green” deckhand aboard inland tugboats moving barges and inland rigs, knows exactly what it takes to work aboard a large vessel. Now, after years of interviewing job candidates, Lewis is confident in his ability to pick out a good hire.
Years ago, when the U.S. oil business began to decline, Lewis briefly tried his hand in life insurance, but the call of the sea was too great and he returned to later be recruited by Nathan Guice.
A relatively new hire at Guice himself, he explains that the company’s attention to safety through the careful administration of working hours on our fleet is a uniquely Guice Offshore policy that ultimately benefits our customers.
“That’s what I love about this company,” said Lewis. “Our attention to detail. Our philosophy here at Guice Offshore is to treat people the way we would want to be treated.”
- Do you have what it takes to “GO?” Apply to Guice Offshore online at GuiceOffshore.com/Careers or GOMarineServices.com/Jobs
