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Pursuing a sea of opportunities

		For as long as he could remember, Carlos C. Salinas has felt a connection to the sea. As a teenager, he had wanted to join the US Navy. He admits that his aspirations always had "something to do with water". Although he did not enlist, he would later build an enterprise that would become one of the Philippines+ largest crew management companies, helping make the country the seafarers+ capital of the world. When Mr. Salinas graduated from the University of Sto. Tomas with a Commerce degree, he left for the USA and was employed by a shipping company in New York. His experience and his desire to do something meaningful for the country were what motivated him to establish Philippine Transmarine Carriers, Inc. (PTC) in 1979. PTC+ s deployment capability covers chemical tankers; product, oil and crude tankers; very large

crude carriers; LPG and LNG tankers; bulk carriers; general cargo; containers; roll-on/roll-off ships; car carriers; cruise liners; and offshore vessels.

In the late 1970s, a presidential decree had been issued encouraging Filipinos to enter the shipping industry without heavy capital investment. Mr. Salinas saw the opportunity to set up PTC with a start-up capital of P370,000. "We started in February 1979, with 180 square meters in Legaspi Towers, six employees and 72 seafarers," Mr. Salinas narrates. At that time, the Philippines was not yet recognized as a big labor supplier for the maritime industry. With a solid partnership fostered with a Norwegian ship owner that leased the company three ships, PTC was able to take off. Between 1979 and 1983 its fleet grew to 32 ships.

Realizing that Filipinos needed more advanced skills to commander newer ship models, PTC sent officers to Norway, Denmark and Sweden to acquire training in 1984. The first ship with a full-Filipino crew set sail in March 1984, the second in September 1984 and the third in early 1985. "It worked. They were trading from the Middle East to the States and back. And that's when we saw that properly trained Filipinos can do the job," Mr. Salinas relates.

Seeing that an investment in training is essential lo the development of world-class Filipino seafarers, PTC set up in 1992 the PTC Training Center, later renamed the Philippine Center for Advanced Maritime Simulation and Training. The center is accredited by the Philippine Maritime Training Center, Philippine Maritime Industry Authority (Marina), Professional Regulation Commission and the Panama Maritime Authority. It is the first maritime training center certified three times by Det Norske Veritas, one of the world's leading classification societies. The center has also formed partnerships with Seagull AS of Norway, The Swedish Club, Marlins of the UK, and ST Education and Training, Pte. Ltd. of Singapore.