Waterborne roots grow into a career

CONFIDENT APPROACH: J. Kent Dresser, right, president of Confident Captain/Ocean Pros, gives some tips to Calvin Rogers. Dresser makes the most of the quieter winter season by offering land-based training. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
CONFIDENT APPROACH: J. Kent Dresser, right, president of Confident Captain/Ocean Pros, gives some tips to Calvin Rogers. Dresser makes the most of the quieter winter season by offering land-based training. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

When working on the water begins at 14 years old with standing watch for Safe/ Sea, a marine-assistance and boat-towing company, there’s a good chance waterborne roots will take hold and create a lifetime path, and in J. Kent Dresser’s case, a career.
Like all the work connected to the sea that flows through Dresser’s life, his founding of Confident Captain/Ocean Pros in 2003 developed from a clear and direct current, beginning when he was growing up in the North Kingstown village of Wickford.
He became one of the youngest captains in the region when he was 18 years and six days old.
Along his maritime path, he earned a bachelor’s degree in coastal and marine policy from the University of Rhode Island in 1998, continuing to work for Safe/Sea during his college years.
“After college, when I was working on tugs in New York, we had two weeks on and two weeks off. I still lived in Rhode Island and still worked for Safe/Sea,” said Dresser.
“The captain’s training I’m doing now started informally. My experience in rescue boats showed me that recreational boaters needed training in driving their boats, especially in docking,” said Dresser. “So I’d just be at the marinas, showing them how to maneuver their boats and dock.”
The requests for training increased informally until Dresser realized they reached critical mass.
“Finally, in 2003, I decided to quit my job and turn it into a business, training recreational boaters and professional mariners,” said Dresser.
Today, he still works part time as an active senior captain and salvage master for Safe/Sea during the summer months.
Since he launched Confident Captain/Ocean Pros, he makes the most of the quieter winter season by offering land-based training.
“Here, the professional mariners are very busy in summers. They don’t have time for professional development,” said Dresser.
“The training resources in America tend to lend themselves toward big ships. The Coast Guard breaks down their licenses by tonnage and we really focus on the smaller boats,” he said.
“What we’ve seen is a tremendous amount of growth in small boats combing shorelines – first-response boats, fast ferries, security boats and offshore supply. Pilot vessels are very important and play a critical role in keeping transportation going in America,” said Dresser. “The boats may be smaller, but the job is still very big and very important.”
In addition to private, small-boat operators, he trains mariners in all the military services. Confident Captain/Ocean Pros prepares mariners for a variety of U.S. Coast Guard licenses. There are captain’s license courses, yacht-master courses and preparation for safety certification, including personal survival and firefighting.
Confident Captain/Ocean Pros employs part-time office staff and half a dozen working captains – and only working captains – as part-time instructors.
“In order to teach for me, you have to be employed as a captain of a boat,” said Dresser. “You cannot be unemployed and get a job teaching for me.”
The training school isn’t directly on the water and doesn’t own vessels – it charters boats as needed and rents the swimming pool from the Boys & Girls Clubs for survival classes. For firefighter training, the school works with local fire districts.
The leap into a full-time business has found a growing niche market.
“We train hundreds of students a year,” said Dresser. They’re in-state, out-of-state and international students. Dresser has gone to teach in England, as well as in Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.
“Someone called wanting me to come to Africa. They had a large group of people they wanted to train. I decided not to do that,” said Dresser. “We also turned down a request from China.”
Business is so good, actually, that Confident Captain/Ocean Pros outgrew its Newport space and moved to larger facilities in Middletown on April 1.
While Dresser’s career on the water followed a straight path, that wasn’t the case for Ted Green, who was on the policy staff for former Rhode Island Gov. J. Joseph Garrahy and then worked in construction-project management for 24 years.
“The construction business in the nation and in New England was in a protracted slump and I was downsized,” said Green.
“It was a matter of asking myself, ‘What do I want to do now?’ I’ve been sailing and racing since I was 12 years old, so I said, ‘Why not target something I love to do as something I could do for my living from this point on?’ ”
Green has twice sailed across the Atlantic Ocean and competed in sailboat-racing events as far away as Australia.
“Boating is in my blood,” said Green, who lives in Wickford. The options he considered for working on the water, such as a launch driver or tour boat operator, required a captain’s license. He did an accelerated, intensive course at Confident Captain to prepare for the Coast Guard exam.
Despite all his time on the water, Green said the Coast Guard exam, which requires knowledge of national regulations, “was a challenging test.” He now has a license to operate a vessel of up to 50 tons. All’s well for Green when it leads to water. He’s heading into his fourth season as dock master and launch driver at the New York Yacht Club in Newport, working 32 hours a week from May through October.
“I cross paths with people I’ve raced sailboats against years ago and I meet lots of other interesting people,” said Green. “And I’m on the water most of the day.”
Another Confident Captain graduate working on the waterfront is Cedar Poirier of Middletown, whose family is from Rhode Island and Connecticut, but she grew up on a farm her parents moved to in Nova Scotia, Canada.
Poirier made a connection to Rhode Island waters as a teenager when she came to Newport to stay with her uncle. He had a 12-meter vessel, a type of racing boat used in the America’s Cup beginning in the late 1950’s and into the early 1980s. Now they’re often used for charters.
“I would stay at my grandma’s in Newport and work on my uncle’s boat in the summers,” said Poirier. “I was doing maintenance and restoration – sanding, varnishing and painting. Then I would go sailing with my uncle and then go back to school in Nova Scotia.”
When she turned 18, Poirier started working on crews during winter, sailing to destinations like Antigua.
Instead of going to nautical college in Canada, she came to work in a boatyard in Rhode Island and then worked on a crew for 12-meter charters out of Newport, working her way up to first mate.
“Three years ago my boss said to me, ‘It’s time for you to be captain of the boat.’ That’s when I got connected to Confident Captain for training,” said Poirier. She now has a license to operate a 100-ton vessel and is captain of the 12-meter Heritage.
“As a captain, the biggest thing is safety-making sure my guests are safe,” said Poirier. “We have wedding parties, corporate charters, couples who wants a leisurely sail and sometimes a group of 15 people who want to race another boat with their friends in it.
“One of my favorite times on the Heritage was when I took out one little, elderly lady. We even saw a dolphin. She had the time of her life,” said Poirier. “Going sailing was on her bucket list.” •

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