Among Mike Plis’ many goals for his training program at Sea Services North America is to provide a safety transition for commercial fishermen into what Plis calls “making one of the world’s most dangerous jobs a little less dangerous – one boat and one crew member at a time.”

Plis, who is SSNA’s Training Manager, has adopted a comprehensive training program to sustain SSNA’s growing cooperative, which links the offshore wind industry to commercial fishing.

“Safety standards in the commercial fishing industry are far less rigorous than what they are for all other professional mariners working offshore wind construction projects,” Plis said. “A core part of our mission here is to raise those safety skills through training, while teaching them specific project skills, and more generally about the offshore wind industry.”

Plis’ course includes crewmen security training, CPR, fire training, and deep-sea rescue.

“Depending on the state, the offshore wind project, and the wind company, we have them fight fires at various fire academies,” Plis said, “and use a local pool for safety training, getting them into a life raft and learning how to properly put on a life preserver. Once they get through that course, they move on to the next phase.”

Plis praised the quality of the work that well-prepared fishermen have completed over 11 campaigns to date.

“Fishermen know these waters better than anyone, they know all the gear types, how to spot them, and often who fishes in various areas,” he said.

Plis also noted several challenges, including the juxtaposition of the corporate offshore wind industry with some expert fishermen who don’t often use computers or have email addresses.

“We bridge the gap between those two environments,” Plis said. “As our co-founder Gary Yerman always says, ‘we speak fish and offshore wind.’”

Plis said further training includes environmental training, such as how to react when encountering certain sea mammals, how to wear safety gear and how to negotiate lobster or fishing gear that’s broken off.

“Mike does this program very well,” SSNA Chief Executive Officer Gordon Videll said. “SSNA is able to hold in one hand an appreciation for the professionalism of that fisherman who may need help, yet without any disrespect, bring them through the process. Mike does an amazing job to bring them in and make them such a valued component to the offshore wind customer.”

Videll continued, “When we started looking at this five years ago, we did a gap analysis. We found the most glaring issues centered around this massive cavern between commercial fishermen and this very mature industry coming over from Europe. Everything came from that and it’s still evolving.”