Buying time: Juneau’s Marine Exchange of Alaska saves lives, cargo, communities and wildlife

The shipshape third-floor conference room inside the waterfront Marine Exchange of Alaska is as efficient and functional as the vessel tracking firm’s operations center one floor lower.

Executive Director Steve White and founder Ed Page look comfortable and relaxed seated at the deck-plank style conference table. The room is surrounded by nautical artifacts, maritime photos on the walls, and a huge video screen rotating images of ships, ports and lighthouses.

The captains’ relaxed positions belie the intensity of their work with a mission to help mariners make safe, efficient and environmentally sound decisions at sea. The two men, both retired U.S. Coast Guard captains, and their team of 31 employees, are dedicated to providing information that ensures safe transit for hundreds of vessels, mostly around the North Pacific Ocean, using the latest technology, a variety of communication methods and thoughtfully built partnerships.

“We try to buy time with a suite of tools and expertise to allow a problem at sea to be solved before it becomes a disaster,” White said. Adequate time allows rescuers to prepare for an emergency while communications connect essential personnel so everyone knows a ship’s location, situation and possible risks.

Pointing to a photo of a wave-swept ship on the conference room wall, Marine Exchange of Alaska founder Ed Page says the Selendang Ayu disaster was a trigger that prompted him to improve the nonprofit’s vessel tracking systems. The incident is an example of how timely calls for help could have saved lives, a Coast Guard helicopter and tons of cargo that impacted the coastline.

Modern tools have boosted the capabilities well beyond those in 2004 when the Selendang Ayu broke apart near the Aleutian Islands. Had the ship’s crew called for help sooner than the 15 hours they delayed, the tragedy with its losses and environmental damage might have been prevented.

“We’re driven by this incident,” White said. “It helped shape our monitoring and response procedures.”

Today, high-tech vessel tracking doesn’t wait until a crew calls for help. “Automatic identification system” (AIS) transponders, required on all commercial vessels 65-feet or longer, activate an alert. But human eyes do the best work.

This sensitivity occurs Tuesday afternoon in the 24/7 operations center on the exchange’s second floor. Two skilled marine information specialists, Jason Hort and Katelyn Rennicke, study a bank of computer screens displaying ships, weather and maps pinpointing hundreds of vessels following the imaginary arc of the “great circle” route between Asia and North America. This is the vast domain of the Marine Exchange of Alaska (MXAK).

Watch stander Hort has noticed an anomaly in the pattern of ship icons moving around the northern Gulf of Alaska. He is monitoring a 180-meter-long cargo ship 200 miles southwest of Kodiak. The ship has slowed to three knots. That’s unusual, but not yet a concern. He watches the computer image for several minutes to be certain the ship’s speed is not an indication of a navigation or mechanical problem. The large windy.com weather screen shows strong headwinds driving toward the cargo ship. That could explain the change. Within a short time, the big vessel picks up speed to 4.5 knots. Hort continues to observe that individual boat-shaped icon as it moves toward Unimak Pass where it is likely to slip through the island chain as it steams toward the Orient on the most efficient transit route across the Pacific.

Not all observations end benignly. Some are outstanding successes. The staff at MXAK played a crucial role in saving four lives when they deduced the name of a ship after a garbled Mayday radio call at 2:30 a.m. on a dark night a few years ago. Responders could only pick up the first letter of the ship’s name — “M” — and “we’re going down.” No other details could be deciphered.

Because the boat didn’t founder in water but remained hung up on a rock, its EPIRB didn’t float free and go off. An “emergency position-indicating radio beacon” automatically relays a distressed ship’s location. MXAK watchstanders, like Hort and Rennicke, searched lists and found the Masonic, a commercial fishing boat, matching the vessel. They narrowed the location and directed a rescue helicopter to the wreck site instead of searching a 3,000 square mile area and saved the fishermen’s lives.

“We are trying to take the ‘search’ out of ‘search and rescue,’” said White. “We complement the amazing job the Coast Guard does in Alaska.”

International monitoring company based in Juneau

When asked why he founded the Marine Exchange in Juneau, Ed Page’s answer was simple.

“I like it here,” Page said, having first arrived in Alaska in 1973. Subsequent duty stations took him to Los Angeles, San Francisco and other ports as well as at sea.

More realistically, however, it was his years in the Coast Guard that illustrated the gap in Alaska information that his team is working to fill. “Alaska was the Wild West,” Page said. He noted that Juneau is the headquarters of the Coast Guard in Alaska, it’s the state capital with state and federal agencies located nearby as well as the Alaska State Legislature. Things come together here.

As founder of the MXAK, Page could see both the need and the opportunity while still on active duty with the Coast Guard in the 1990s. But he was waiting for the internet and other technology to mature enough to be truly useful. When the time was right, his move was quick: 12 hours after retiring, he opened the first MXAK office on the second floor of Merchants Wharf in 2001. As the firm expanded, they moved near the Douglas Bridge. When a piece of property nearby became available, Page bought it. MRV Architects designed the building which overlooks fishing boats and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game’s research vessel Medeia in Harris Harbor.

The exchange has built more than a nice workplace. The business — with its own software and hardware engineers — has constructed 72 weather stations, often utilizing historic lighthouse sites that were erected at strategic locations to help early mariners avoid hazards. They have also built 160 marine safety sites expanding a network of land-based VHF radio communications sites over the past two years. The value for those units is that the VHF radio system is common on many boats.

“We have a matrix of information,” White says of the myriad communications options: satellite phones, VHF radio stations, email, internet and good relationships with communities. But weather information is the key to making good decisions on the water, he notes.

White and Page, with a combined more than 60 years of Coast Guard experience, share stories of lessons learned. White tells of a pod of endangered right whales in narrow Unimak Pass. To prevent a possible whale strike, the exchange contacted the Coast Guard which notified ships and provided avoidance procedures. He adds that many non-Alaskans are unaware of the significance of subsistence foods to Alaska’s Native people and the bond with their culture through harvesting wild food such as marine mammals. Through relationships built with communities, conversations with remote villages are easier to have and to relate essential details to vessels so they are aware of hunters on the ice, for instance.

An early appreciation for Alaska continues

Executive Director Steve White arrived in Kodiak on his first assignment as a young Coastie graduate from the New London, Connecticut Coast Guard Academy. He joined the Marine Exchange after retiring, citing Juneau as “such a maritime community.” He noted that visitors, mine workers, fuel and groceries all travel by sea. With a mission to keep shipping safer and more efficient, Juneau makes a lot of sense for the exchange location.

Engaging the next generation is another goal of the nonprofit group. For the past four years, two senior cadets from the Coast Guard academy intern in Juneau during summer with trips to Utqiagvik, Kodiak and other unique Alaska locations to learn about the state’s “blue economy,” says White. Similarly, MXAK hosts high school students to expose them to possible maritime careers.

In addition to the staff, the firm has a volunteer board of 12 directors with extensive knowledge of the maritime industry. Alaska’s exchange also works closely with the four West Coast port-specific marine exchanges in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle.

A new initiative is Arctic Watch, a monitoring program that provides vital information as Arctic marine traffic increases significantly due to changing sea ice conditions. A critical site is the Bering Strait, one of a few global transportation choke points.

Alaska is notorious for disasters at sea. Page was actively involved in the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Prince William Sound. It’s another example of incidents that could have had different outcomes.

While bureaucracy can move slowly, the Marine Exchange of Alaska is agile and responsive by building more than physical objects. They build relationships.

“Trust and respect are the biggest form of currency,” says White, who notes that marine exchanges are not a new concept. The San Francisco Marine Exchange recently celebrated its 175th anniversary. To reinforce how tools have changed since those days, White points to a symbol of one of the industry’s early tools: a brass “long glass” standing on a tripod by the window of the conference room. The long glass — similar to today’s spotting scopes — along with semaphore flags and flashing lights were early communication essentials.

“There’s a big difference in how we communicate today,” said White. “It’s not that we change what we do, it’s how we do it.” Their goal continues to be saving lives and buying time to prevent maritime catastrophes.

• Laurie Craig can be contacted at editor@juneauempire.com.