Update

Greetings to all who have visited my site, I appreciate the attention and was humbled by the

great response I received upon setting it up. It is of extreme help when you have a bright and knowledgeable daughter who is great at websites and willing to assist her Dad. Olivia is staying in Canada and applying for citizenship and will be part of our proud connection with Canada.

It has been a year since turning the keys over to Tony Winter and the Seaspan VSL team. I have watched from a distance, all signs show VSL has not lost a beat and continues to be an industry leader in ship repair and conversion. I am thankful of this and the VSL team, a good transition is such an important part of changes in leadership.

Ending full-time work after 40 plus years was more of an adjustment and stressful than I

expected, if any of you are approaching that date then I think you can mentally prepare

yourself much more effectively than I did . But after a certain amount of time, life begins to

rebalance, not having to wake to an alarm each day is wonderful, and life starts filling the holes that once were owned by a career. The battery gets recharged and the mind looks for

applications of well-earned knowledge and experience, but the desire to return to full time just does not exist.

Having said that, I want to thank all that I have reached out and reconnected and the

opportunities they have presented to assist them in their goals and careers. Some of the

projects I have been worked to date include the following:

Serving as an Executive Advisor for a very large acquisition in the maritime sector in the US.

Assisting in multiple valuations of smaller companies available for acquisition for close friends who I have worked with in the past, including significant financial modeling and projections.

Assisting is accessing the Maritime sector for a couple sales efforts for product/services I see as value added to the companies I have approached.

Reconnecting and occasionally advising/mentoring a few great individuals that I have been fortunate enough to work with in the past.

Some of these opportunities have been transactional and compensated very well, some are at risk or just favors for people who have shared my life. Either way, it all comes down to

providing value and so far that has been the case. I think consulting part time/short term stints will be the next leg of my journey for the near years, all of course dictated by health and family.

After eight great years in Victoria BC, we are heading back to Oregon as the first base of

retirement, will be transitioning soon. Karen and I did get a great road trip from Toronto to

Halifax last fall (Old Quebec City is awesome!), we have now been in seven of the Canadian

provinces, a higher percentage than the States I have seen in the US. Our daughter is settled, we have had to overcome some health issues, but the time has come to return to the States.

The mail address is the same, the new phone number is updated on the site. And we continue to wish the best fortune to all we have met, the entire Seaspan and VSL teams, and the others we have met along the way. I really wanted my last full-time career to be running a great shipyard, and so appreciative of Seaspan that gave me that opportunity – the third and last of the shipyards I have led.

Cheers to all and will see you when our paths cross again.

-Joe O'Rourke