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Hi, my name is Dariusz Szymczak.
In 1994 I graduated from the Maritime Academy of Szczecin.
I started my sea career on bulk carriers
in a Polish Steamship Company until I obtained my third mate license.
At that time contracts were very long, being six, seven, even nine months, so
I decided that I would look for something which give me more stability
in my family life. I accepted an offer of work with a foreign-owned company.
At the same time I realised that I am not interested
in working on bulk carriers, so I tried first container
ships where I became a second officer,
but it was still not what I was looking for.
As second officer or chief mate,
I had very small influence on cargo and particulars
of the work such as time charter and regular calls at ports.
Therefore I finally moved onto chemical tankers.
In the very early stages of my career
I considered such work as dangerous, but
it soon occurred to me that when keeping proper
level of norms and standards, this work is actually safe.
I found my true calling here; work was complicated but
gave me a lot of job satisfaction. I was fianlly able to realise this on chemical
tankers.
Also because work on chemical tankers
is considered as higher risk work,
the work conditions were much better.
The contracts were shorter and salaries higher,
and prospects for promotion were better.
So it was on chemical tankers I started my career as captain.
In 2005, I realised that I had achieved my full potential
in this profession, and there were no more opportunities. Thus I needed new challenges.
I moved onto a Danish company, called Erria.
They made me a job offer, which required me to move to their headquarters.
I accepted. I was responsible for safety standards
in the company and its fleet. We made an agreement that
I would deal with vetting. For those who are not from the chemical
or tanker industry, vetting is a form of ship’s inspection
which checks if a ship meets specific criteria.
Such criteria have been set up by the oil and chemical industry.
Every single ship has to pass at least three to four such inspections yearly,
and in order to fulfil these criteria, the crew must be trained
properly; however STCW criteria are not always sufficient here.
We must consider professional and technical areas so the
companies quite often decide to employ their own
captains as trainee officers. So I used to travel to
different ships in the company to help other captains
and crew prepare for inspection. As my company
grew, we purchased new tankers, so I superintend
new projects in Tuzla in Turkey. At this stage, before
the ship was taken into operation, changes were
introduced; changes which were connected
with the function of oil companies and other obligatory criteria.
So altogether, I spent around six months in shipyards in Tuzla.
When the office work was reorganised, I was offered to take over the
vetting and quality department and become DPA in the company.
It was a new challenge, and a new and interesting phase of work for me.
It extended my area of expertise and experience to include inspections,
company standards, quality standards, ISO 14001,
and management standards like TMSA,
Tanker Management Self Assessment.
The nature of this work always brought me new experiences.
Of course the other side was that I had
to undertake additional training and keep monitoring the
regulations, but at the same time I was strongly motivated,
so it was not big issue for me. I would say that the nature
of the work that I was connected required a lot of frequent travel, but this did
not cause me any real problems. At the beginning it was
even an attractive aspect of the work. But with time, new tasks arose
and the work became much more stable.
At this moment in time, my company Erria has changed
its business area; It has sold all ships. I was offered
to remain in the company in the new position of project
coordinator, which I accepted. I can utilise my profesional tanker experience
in the construction of new ships for our customers, and consulting,
which is the new profile of the company.
So I will coordinate new building of Aframax in Iran,
at governmental project lasting five years.
I will coordinate works between side office in Iran
and ordering party. My knowledge about tankers, vettings,
inspections and a lack of real ships made me to think
about additional activity. Because there are no objection
to start cooperation with owner in Szczecin,
the only local owner who carries liquid cargos,
the Unibaltic company.
The company is rapidly growing up in chemical industry.
The company is purchasing second hand tankers
but is also continuously increasing its tonnage.
The oil companies function in this way that
despite the size big or small every has to fulfil same
criteria and standards. So my friends,
the owners of Unibaltic company found out that there
is area for our common cooperation.
So I will try to improve standards in the office
and fleet being at position of marine standards manager.