A longtime AWO member, based in the Pacific Northwest, recently noted that at its core, the American Waterways Operators consisted of “good people, doing good work for a great industry.” How true. But how the organization got to that point is a story 75 years in the making.
What began as a struggling but ambitious group of industry players evolved over the decades into the tip of the spear for the economic efficacy of the hundreds of members and associate members, but also for the safety of hundreds of thousands of workers on boats and on shore. And through its decades-long defense of the Jones Act, AWO is the steadfast bulwark against any alien transit in America’s inter- and intracoastal waterways.
AWO was launched in postwar America in 1944 at its first meeting in St. Louis, Missouri. Many of the early members were small family owned and operated companies. But over time, the inclusion of “blue water” companies, along with the existing “brown water” operators, and expansion into the Pacific region, allo
