Words by Dave McMillan, former CEO of Vard Marine Inc. (1989-2020)
I started with Wartsila Marine Inc. (now Vard Marine Inc.) in September 1989 as a Senior Naval Architect. The office on West 8th was not quite suitable for our needs; we did not have sufficient desk for all twelve staff and therefore someone had to be on the road all the time. That included me in the second week after joining. I was asked to go on-site in Morgan City, Louisiana for one month for construction supervision of a floating power plant (FPP) we were designing.
This was the first of six different FPP projects designed by our company in the 1990s. There was only one other company in the world in Finland that designed floating power plants, therefore we were close to being “experts” in the field. One of the challenges of these projects included having to find a way to discharge cooling water several miles away due to the risk of increasing water temperature in small harbours. Another challenge was having to radiator cool the machinery on one power plant. Huge intake fans/radiators on the top of the industrial building was the only solution.
