Mara Blagojevic, Senior Marine Risk Consultant at AGCS, opted for a life less ordinary when she pursued a career in the marine industry. But how did she get where she is today and what does her daily to-do list look like? Here she shares her career journey, from sailing the world as a student to experiencing Hurricane Harvey at close quarters and making the move into the world of insurance.
This article is part of the
Global Risk Dialogue - 02/2022
The 1 minute dialogue
- Ever-larger vessels are creating the potential for higher exposures and losses.
- Fires on board, vessel stability, congested ports, and skills shortages are other areas of concern.
- Women in marine can find support or make connections through clubs and industry organizations.
- If more women share their positive experiences of seafaring it will encourage others on to this rewarding career path.
I grew up in Chicago, on the shores of the mighty Lake Michigan. The city is one of North America’s most historic transport hubs, an intermodal port with strategic links to the Great Lakes, Mississippi River, and the US railroad system. I don’t come from a marine background, but my parents owned a trucking company with a fleet of 20 vehicles and a team of drivers. For as long as I can remember, I’ve been fascinated by logistics and how goods are transported around the world.
After high school, I followed this interest to the United States Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, New York, to study logistics and intermodal transportation. As students, we had the opportunity to work as deck cadets, spending the equivalent of a year at sea on container ships, replenishment vessels, and cargo ships. I sailed to Spain, Morocco, the West Coast of the US, Hawaii, and the Suez Canal. Sometimes I would act as deck officer, driving the ship and navigating waterways, or I might be on lookout, or tasked with overseeing the movement of cargo. Once, I was on the bow of a vessel when it hit a pier in Morocco, coming in to port too fast. There were no human injuries but the ship spent 30 days in port for repairs.
Needless to say, these early experiences honed my problem-solving and time-management skills. I then joined the United States Coast Guard as a marine inspector in Corpus Christi, Texas, on the Gulf of Mexico, where I learned the ropes of vessel inspections on barges, small passenger vessels, and ferries, as well as freight and tanker vessels. Navigating the world of compliance gives you a 360 view of the maritime industry and all its protocols. Inspectors must ensure the relevant treaties, rules and regulations are adhered to in areas like construction, stability, operations, staffing, safety and security.
Hurricane Harvey hits home
In August 2017, I faced one of the most momentous challenges of my career when Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas as a Category 4 hurricane. With just 24 hours’ notice, I was assigned as liaison between the Coast Guard in Corpus Christi and the emergency response team for the local county. Most of the residents had already been evacuated, leaving only emergency response teams and a handful of us from the Coast Guard, camping out in the basement of the city’s courthouse. The storm raged around us with wind speeds of over 130mph – the first hurricane I’d ever witnessed – and we had to rely on emergency generators when we lost power.
After the worst of the storm had passed, I spent time with the local response team, relaying search and rescue efforts to the captain of the port, county officials, and a Coast Guard command center further inland. At first, the weather conditions were so dangerous we couldn’t launch any helicopters or boats, but as soon as we could, we set out to assess damages to the port and vessels, and oversee salvage operations – around half a dozen barges were washed up and grounded.
Most alarming was the news I received of a tug boat sinking in one of the channels, with people on board. As the liaison, I relayed the emergency to the appropriate personnel who were able to deploy necessary rescue efforts to ensure the six people on board were carried to safety.
Jumping ship into marine insurance
I later moved to a Coast Guard unit in Washington DC, where I undertook the training of others. As I moved up the ranks I became responsible for ensuring the standardization of training for over 50 recruiting offices and 330 field recruiters, leading inspections of offices all over the US.
Experiences like these, together with my knowledge of marine risks and regulations, made a move into insurance a natural fit for my skillset – and I jumped at the chance when the opportunity came. My husband was also on active duty in a similar line of work and we wanted to stop moving every few years and start a family. My first role was as loss control consultant with a marine insurer, and then in April 2022 I took up my present position as Senior Marine Risk Consultant at AGCS.
The marine team around me is fantastic – whether they’re joining video calls from the other side of the world or sitting next to me in an office. We have so much collective experience. There are marine underwriting, claims and loss control experts in 160 countries, including master mariners, several former former captains of large vessels, marine engineers, and specialists in supply chain security.
My role involves overseeing inspections of cargo handling – so the loading, off-loading, and transhipment of goods (moving containers from one vessel to another). Typically, my working day starts with a check of my emails, catching up on events I may have missed in different time zones overnight. I then go over any inspections coming up and ensure all parties involved are informed and ready to go. I review the reports of completed surveys and liaise with the surveyor or underwriter about the report’s conclusion and any concerns I have from a risk consultant perspective.
Every day presents something novel and challenging. It’s a fast-paced job in a dynamic industry which is undergoing constant change, whether that’s driven by new technologies, a global pandemic, natural disasters, conflict, or the bottlenecks we are presently seeing in ports all over the world. With so many different types of client, shipments, and risk profiles, I’m always learning something new.
New risks making waves
Change is stimulating, but there are trends in the marine industry that are giving us all cause for concern, and I don’t see a quick resolution to them. Although shipping safety has generally increased in recent years, very large vessels are suffering disproportionately high losses. Over the past decade, container ship capacity has doubled and vessels are getting bigger, raising the prospect of higher exposures, losses, and salvage costs.
Recently, we’ve seen the industry afflicted by catastrophic fires, such as those aboard the car carrier Felicity Ace and container ship X-Press Pearl. With hazardous cargos like chemicals, or batteries in electric vehicles on board, the more containers, the higher the risk. Then there are concerns around vessel stability, staff shortages, and an increase in ‘general average’ – when the losses from an event are shared proportionately, depending on the values of the interested parties’ cargos.
Ports are still congested following the Covid pandemic, leaving consignments at risk of theft and perishable goods vulnerable to spoiling. Congestion can require faster turnaround times in ports, putting pressure on staff who are loading and unloading cargo – a hazardous undertaking at the best of times.
Cybercrime is also an ever-present danger – ports in India, South Africa, and the US have been hit by ransomware attacks in recent years.
Brighter horizons
Despite the headwinds facing the sector, marine is a fantastic industry to work in. If I hadn’t gone into insurance, I would have happily continued a career with the US Coast Guard – in fact, I still work with them as a reservist for one weekend a month and two full weeks of the year. It keeps my skills sharp and means I can be pulled out of reserves into an active position for a hurricane response in the Gulf of Mexico if I’m ever needed.
Of course, any job can be stressful, but I lead an active life, playing tennis or golf and working out four or five times a week with weight-training or Orangetheory, a type of high-intensity interval training. My husband and three-year-old daughter keep my feet on terra firma.
I’ve been in a male-dominated environment since I graduated high school and I’d love to see more women enter the industry. I believe if we work towards improving women’s representation through the networks they’re involved in, whether it’s initiatives like Women in Maritime by the International Maritime Organization or clubs like Women on the Water here in the US, we can shed light on the opportunities that exist in the maritime world. If more of us talk, share, and promote the enriching experiences it has offered us, we can improve the gender balance in the industry and encourage more women on to a really rewarding career path.
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