Hello, PVA members. I am Lee Boone, and I am delighted to be joining the Passenger Vessel Association (PVA) staff as senior regulatory and programs advisor. It is a part-time role, but one I’ve been moving toward naturally. My connection to PVA and the passenger vessel industry stretches back more than 29 years and making this relationship official feels like a very welcome next step.
My background is in vessels, engineering, marine safety, business, operations and program leadership. I am a professional engineer, project management professional and naval architect, and I hold degrees from both MIT and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Over the course of more than three decades, many of them with the U.S. Coast Guard and with Gibbs & Cox, I’ve had the opportunity to work across the full vessel life cycle; from initial design and shipyard construction through operations, maintenance, repair, and salvage in commercial, military, and offshore disciplines across North America and the Far East.
But before any of that, my first real education came much closer to home. As a teenager, I worked in my dad’s small family restaurant (“Booney’s”), helping him get it off the ground back in the 1980s. That experience gave me an early and lasting appreciation for what it takes to run a small business; the passion that drives you, the hard work that sustains you, and the personal investment that’s on the line every single day. Those lessons have never left me, and they inform how I think about the members of this association and the businesses you have built and worked so hard to grow.
My introduction to the passenger vessel world came early on in my Coast Guard career reviewing small passenger vessel plans from the likes of Dejong & Lebet and Scarano Boat Building while at the Coast Guard Marine Safety Center in the 1990s. I also inspected passenger vessels like Victoria Clipper IV (when I ran into Beth Gedney) in the early 2000s. These early experiences and relationships forged with PVA stalwarts opened my eyes to the dedication and professionalism that defines this industry and planted a seed that has only grown deeper over the years.
Among other roles in the Coast Guard, I served at headquarters overseeing the safety, security, and environmental protection program for more than 35,000 U.S. commercial vessels (working for Eric Christensen). It was in that role that my connection to PVA really took root, having participated in the PVA/U.S. Coast Guard Quality Partnership work that produced the first versions of what would become the Flagship SMS program. That collaboration was a formative experience, and it deepened my appreciation for what this association stands for. I later served as the Coast Guard’s director of investigations and casualty analysis.
Since retiring from the Coast Guard in 2019, I’ve worked in the private sector at Gibbs & Cox leading business development, program management and design work for mostly military vessels. My most meaningful connection to PVA during this time has been helping to further develop and refine PVA’s Flagship Program to create a mature program with readily usable tools that PVA can adopt and present to the Coast Guard. Having been part of Flagship from its earliest beginnings through to the program it is today, I’m proud of what we’ve built together, and I look forward to continuing to support and grow it.
Retiring from the Coast Guard and joining the commercial world also reinforced something I first learned behind the counter of my dad’s restaurant: the bottom line is real, and it matters. Programs that don’t make financial sense simply don’t get implemented, no matter how well-intentioned they are. Good regulatory and safety/security programs must be economically viable to be effective. If they’re too burdensome or costly to adopt, they fail the very members they’re meant to serve.
Looking ahead, my focus in this role will be on advancing PVA’s Regulatory Committee efforts and program offerings in ways that create sustainable, enduring value for the membership. Underpinning that work is a philosophy I’ve held throughout my career, having seen it from both sides: the Coast Guard’s role is to establish and maintain high standards and regulations, and to verify that members are meeting them. Compliance and safety, however, are owned (#ownit) by the operators, and that distinction matters. It means the most valuable thing PVA can do is equip members with the knowledge, tools, and programs they need to own their compliance confidently and completely. That means developing structures and programs that are practical to implement, grounded in operational reality, financially sound, and designed to stand the test of time, not just respond to the regulatory and policy whims. I believe the best programs are the ones members actually use, because they make sense and deliver clear, tangible benefits. That will be my north star: building things that work for you, not just things that sound good and look good on paper.
I’m genuinely excited to be part of the PVA team in this new capacity. Please don’t hesitate to reach out; I look forward to getting to know more of you and serving this community well.
Lee Boone is the PVA Senior Regulatory and Programs Advisor