Steve Welch, CEO of Todd Pacific Shipyards, and Scott Hoggarth, general manager of Crowley Marine, both on Harbor Island, were among those honored Tuesday, May 11, at the 59th Annual Maritime Festival Luncheon. Welch won the Puget Sound Maritime Achievement Award. Hoggarth received the Marine Environmental Business of the Year Award.

The awards ceremony took place in the lavish Pharaoh’s Place Show Lounge with stage, balcony, and Egyptian motif on the 960-foot Carnival Spirit Cruise Ship, ready to sail that day to Alaska for a 7-day cruise to the Tracy Arm Fjord, Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan, and back through Victoria. As speeches were given, crowds of tourists were entering the ship, pulling their luggage up ramps and heading toward the buffets.
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The Luncheon is a tradition that officially concludes the 2010 Maritime Festival that includes tug boat races, Maritime Career Day, Working Waterfront Workshop, and other events this year held May 4 to May 8.

The luncheon was sponsored by the Propeller Club. Speaking were King County Executive Dow Constantine, Port of Seattle CEO Tay Yoshitani, VP of Sales, Western Region, Carnival Cruises, Vicki Tomasino, and President, Port Commission and Chairman of Seattle Maritime Festival, Bill Bryant. Bryant was presented the Maritime Industry Public Official of the Year Award by Eric King, President of the Propeller Club.

Welch was presented his plaque by Admiral John Lockwood, Retired United States Coast Guard, and Hoggarth’s award was presented by Tay Yoshitani.

Welch told the 400-plus guests that he was surprised, that Lockwood drove him to the ship without a peep about the award, and that his assistant snuck his wife and children onboard.

“I started to get this really bad feeling when I noticed all my management team here wearing a tie,” he said, then acknowledging the ladies in nice dresses also on his team.

“(Todd employees) are committed and want to see closure, to see a product finish,” Welsh said, slightly choked up and humbled by the attention. “They work in a business that is visual, physical, and they want to touch it. They get to build it. They get to fix it. We say to ourselves we want to be the best shipyard on the West Coast, and to improve, improve, improve, and see where that takes us. The ferry project has had a compressed time frame, and is a result of a bunch of innovative contributions from a lot of suppliers, contractors, and partnerships.”

Todd is near completion on one Washington State Ferry System vessel and is contracted for two, possibly three more.

“We like to participate in the tug boat races, and survival suit races,” said Aaron Harrington, environmental manager for West Seattle business, Global Diving & Salvage Inc., who attended the luncheon.

This was Carnival Cruise Lines’ first cruise from Seattle with a full ship of 2,124-passengers and a crew of over 900, This was also the first of 18 cruises that will bring some 42,000 passengers to the city this season departing every Tuesday from the port’s newest cruise terminal, Smith Cove Cruise Terminal at Pier 91.

Carnival’s passengers will pump nearly $2 million per ship visit into the Seattle economy, and the Tuesday departures will allow more passengers to depart throughout the summer as Carnival’s sister companies, Holland America and Princess Lines depart on weekends.

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