10 JUNE 2018 • FOGHORN FOGHORNFOCUS: OPERATIONS M any years ago, during our slower wintertime period, our company, Argosy Cruises in Seattle, would schedule our fleet of vessels for the shipyard to get them spruced up and ready for the upcoming months of peak demand. At the same time this was happening, our best employees were trying to get by financially on 15-20 hours per week due to this normal seasonal variation in workload. Some of them would need to seek unemployment relief. In the worst cases, they would be forced to find employment elsewhere and we would lose them completely. Nothing about this situation was good for our valuable staff or our company as a whole. In 2007, we decided to try a new approach to keep key employees on the payroll during the slowest time of the year, while at the same time building their skills, pride, and loyalty to the company. Finding and training a great captain is hard enough; keeping them returning season after season is an entirely different challenge. At Argosy, we have developed a program that helps with retention, training, and Maintenance Program Benefits Vessels and Crew By Brock Gilman, Argosy Cruises Good times in the engine room of Goodtime II