Future generations: Deputy CEO Tore Ulstein with Ulstein summer job hopefuls.
Recent hires suggest her brother Tore’s “side” of the business — engineering — balances her business skills with a builder’s foresight. In this predominantly shipbuilding and service outfit where a handful of management personnel oversee scores of local and sometimes foreign workers, it can be heartening that the pick of design, leadership and technical talent is still to be found locally. New “managers of innovation” brought in late this winter came from across the quay at Rolls-Royce Marine and via promotion within the Group. Rolls-Royce Marine is a competing builder of ship’s gear, and yet new hire Bernt-Aage Ulstein in March 2015 became Ulstein’s new design manager. His MSc and MBA were employed as technical director in the Rolls-Royce propulsion department. An Ulstein communiqué describing the new manager as “a motivator and team builder” reveals prior detailed knowledge of another company’s man in this tight knit coastal community. Business Sense Known for the Group’s innovation, Tore and Gunvor
shocked some industry observers in 2011, when they showed financial élan and launched the investment vehicle Blue Shipping to operate ships until they find gainful employment or dedicated owners. Blue’s been a smash hit in a local shipping industry known for cyclical business gains. Blue Shipping AS appears to run a tiny deficit in order to promote an efficient new, reproducible ship design sought after by fleet owners. Launching it meant taking on risk to series-produce the streamlined PX121 platform supply vessels, but fortune favors the bold in shipbuilding, and offshoreinterested buyers from southern Norway were quickly found. Ulstein Power & Control AS, another entity in the Ulstein Group, has also run a managed deficit but provides ships gear, installation services and work for skilled area residents. The local focus is a key strength of the Group. Another entity — Ulsmo AS — is the Group’s largest shareholder and oversees local-only property investment and a fund, in an apparent effort to give back to a region considered “very special” by industry observers. www.maritimeprofessional.com | Maritime Professional | 33