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Personal Sketches of Marine Men Joseph E. Sheedy, Executive Vice President, United States Lines, Inc. By L. E. Browne m| OSEPH E. SHEEDY is an outstanding figure in Y | the American merchant marine. As_ executive vice president he guides the destinies of the United States lines operating former government- owned transatlantic vessels with the LEVIATHAN as the flagship. One of the youngest of the leaders in the steamship business in this country, he has the attri- butes of the ideal executive. He thinks clearly and quickly, talks rapidly and issues orders with clarity. He was born at Pembroke, Me., April 17, 1881 and received his early education in the public schools of Massachusetts. His family moved to that state when he was a youngster. And young Sheedy soon became imbued with the desire to go to sea. Complying with his son’s request, his father arranged for him to take a course of training on the old Massachusetts schoolship, ENTERPRISE, converted from an ancient warship used during the Civil war. During his first year aboard the ENTERPRISE, he was educated in the fine points of being’ a sailor. Concluding that curriculum the cadets were required to make a choice between deck and engine room work. Believing that the engineering field showed greater possibilities, he decided to cast his lot with the engineering section. Alert and competent he soon became first cadet officer in charge of the engineering class. In June 1898 he graduated. In those days schoolship graduates could not take examinations for a license, so he became an oiler on the S. S. ADMIRAL Dewey of the United Fruit Co. running between Boston and the West Indies. Later he joined the Army Transport service and served in various grades as engineer on the Missouri, ROSECRANZ, SUMMER, SHER- MAN and WRricuHT, leaving the service as chief engineer, He then transferred his activities to the Northern Pacific HS success is based on two old- fashioned precepts: getting the right kind of a start; and making the most of whatever natural talents one possesses. : As CADET on the old Massachusetts schoolship ENTERPRISE he was taught, under ideal conditions, the fundamentals of practical seamanship and marine engineering. —T HE diversity and often great re- sponsibility of positions held, par- ticularly qualify him for managing the greatest marine enterprise so fa attempted in America. lines. Subsequently he joined the revenue cutter service and received the rank of a lieutenant, junior grade. With this commission, he was chief engineer of the ONONDAGA, MOHAWK and the ANDROSCOGGIN and also made a trip to the Arctic on the THETIS. After returning from the Arctic, he resigned from the revenue cutter service to become the supervising engineer of the Hawaiian Electric Co. in Honolulu. It was not long before he returned to the steamship field by accepting a position as general superintendent and assistant to the president of the Inter-Island Steamship Co. This company, now a sub- sidiary of the Matson Navigation Co., is engaged in the transportation of passengers and cargo between the different islands of the Hawaiian group. Returning to the United States he became assistant to the president of the Seattle Construction and Dry Dock Co. and also acted as manager of this concern. Later he was appointed general manager of the Seattle North Pacific Co., shipbuilders. He returned to the Atlantic coast as general manager of the Downey Ship- building Co., Staten Island, N. Y. In 1921 he went to Europe for the first time in a business capacity as European manager for the United States shipping board. He served abroad only a year, being called to Washington to become vice president of the Emergency Fleet Corp. in charge of operations and was appointed a trustee of the shipping board. Remain- ing in Washington until the Fall of 1924, he again went abroad to take charge of the affairs of the shipping board in Europe and in 1926 returned to the United States to become manager of the Montauk Beach Devel- oping Corp. He was engaged in that work only a short time, having interested a number of capitalists in the development of that Portion of Long Island as the 58 - MARINE REVIEW—June, 1930