Steven Bryan:  

After High School, I started at the University of North Ninth Ave. (PJC to those not in the know) and continued to work for my family afternoons and weekends. From there, UWF and eventually (after 6 years) into the work force full time! I worked for my family's business, Brown Marine Service, until 1993 when they sold off their towboats and barges. I went to work for the new owner of the equipment as his Operations Manager and the company became Florida Marine Transporters, Inc. In 1995, the owner moved FMT to Downtown New Orleans, LA and I chose not to relocate, but instead went to work for another local marine business, Runyan Shipyard, as GM. One year into that, our financial backers pulled out and once again, I was looking for a new opportunity, which came in the form of me doing Marine Consulting, working for myself. As a Marine Consultant, my biggest customer was (wait for it!) Florida Marine Transporters! After about a year, they talked me into coming back to work for them, me living part time in New Orleans and returning home every weekend to my family in Pensacola. This got old very quickly, especially since I had a wife and 2 sons waiting for me at home, so when another company, Magnolia Marine Transport, offered me a position in the Jackson/Vicksburg, MS area, I took it and relocated to the small town of Clinton, MS. At Magnolia, I started a position as Information Systems Manager and spearheaded a project to put computers and custom designed Vessel Management Software on board the 15 towboats they owned. It was during this nearly 4 year stint that the Software Vendor (Boatracs) that was providing the custom software to Magnolia for the VMS, spirited me away and got me back to the gulf coast, this time moving to Ocean Springs, MS and working in Gulfport. Boatracs, with offices in San Diego and Gulfport, brought me on as Lead Project Manager and I quickly brought the experience of the towboat industry to their software engineers and we developed and delivered many successful projects to their customers, one of them being Florida Marine Transporters, Inc. In the meantime, one of Boatracs sister companies, Enerdyne, was loosing money hand over fist and eventually, Boatracs was sold to settle debt that Enerdyne had accumulated. The new owners of Boatracs wanted to make the company lean and mean so they could resell at a profit and it was during this time period that Florida Marine again offered me an opportunity to return, once again, to their employment. By this point, FMT had gotten a new owner and moved out of Downtown New Orleans to the North Shore, a much better place to r...Expand for more