Interview: Yaman Sen, General Manager, Med Marine

Yaman ?en is a rising star at Istanbul-based Med Marine. The son of Med Marine founder and CEO Hakan ?en, he currently runs the company’s growing tanker business. He’s also “deputy” to his father in everything else that Med Marine does – towing and salvage, harbor-assist operations, pilotage, emergency response and a thriving shipyard on the Black Sea – one of the largest in Turkey.

We sat down with Yaman to get his take on the current state of the industry and what the future holds for himself and Med Marine.

Welcome, Yaman! Tell us about yourself – your upbringing and education.

I was born in Turkey and went to university in the U.K. where I took a degree in business. I worked in London for a while and then came home and joined the family business.  

Can you give us a brief history of the company – how it grew and evolved over the years?

My father founded the company in 1995 and remains its CEO. He’s only 59, so I’m fortunate to be able to learn from him for many years to come. He’s a tireless worker and has a deep passion for the sea, for his employees and for the business, which I share. The joke is that he sends emails at three o’clock in the morning to employees. But he really does!

So Med Marine started as an operating company and then added a shipyard in 2004. We needed a shipyard because our towing business was growing fast and we were dissatisfied with the quality of tugs available on the market. So we decided to build them ourselves.

And that’s how the Eregli shipyard on the Black Sea came about. It’s one of the largest in Turkey and can build state-of-the-art tugboats, workboats, fishing boats, offshore vessels and even stainless steel, IMO II-type chemical and product tankers. We build them for ourselves and for our customers and have delivered more than 200 vessels since then. Having your own shipyard makes all the difference in terms of quality and consistency.

So today we are both a shipbuilder and a ship-operating company. We build state-of-the-art vessels for customers around the world and are Turkey’s leading tugboat operator. We also have a tanker fleet of 13 vessels, which I currently run.

Impressive! Which business is bigger – the shipyard or the operating company?

It depends on orders. Right now we have more than 40 projects in the shipyard and are really busy. In general, though, it’s about equal. There are so many ups and downs in the maritime business. The tanker business, for example, was not so good for many years. It was the black sheep of the company. Now it's doing nicely.

So it's always depending on market conditions. The maritime industry, as you know, is so volatile, you don't know what's happening from one day to the next. Which is why we are diversified. The towing business pulls us through in tough times like Covid and the financial collapse in 2008. In good times, all phases of the marine industry are up. Right now we are in good times.

But I’m not jumping up and down because the market is good. I know it can be bad, and I don’t see ourselves as sprinters. We want to be running marathons, from generation to generation. We want to be in this business for the long term because we love what we do and we are very good at it.

Where does the name come from – Med Marine?

“Med” is short for “Mediterranean.” It was actually called Mediterranean Marine in the beginning, but Mediterranean means something else in Turkish, so it was changed to Med Marine.

How many employees are there?

We have about 2,000 people in the company.

How do you find good people and train them and keep them?

It’s not easy. You may find them, but to keep them is the hard part. So basically our crewing department and our office people – many were captains or worked on the vessels previously – they have connections. They know people in the business who often refer candidates to us because it's not a big market in Turkey, and Turkish crew are really high-quality crew. So they’re in demand.

And of course we train them – in the classroom and on our vessels. We hold seminars and keep them up to date about new safety regulations and regulatory requirements – what they mean and what they can and cannot do. It’s a continuing process and essential to our success.

We noticed that most of your tugs are designed by the noted Canadian architectural firm, Robert Allan. How did that collaboration come about?

We’ve been collaborating with Robert Allan from the beginning – way back in 1995 – when we were first getting orders from global customers. Many of them wanted Robert Allan-designed escort vessels and tugs. So they provide all of our basic designs including the new battery-electric VoltRA tug.

But we have our own design department as well. We don’t just buy a design and start building the vessel. We talk with the customer because everyone has different requirements and different regulations for their vessels, depending on where they operate. We do tailor-made and one-off tugs because if you go to a normal shipyard and say, okay, I want this tug but I want to change something, they say no, you have to stick with the original design.  

Not us. We’re flexible with our customers, and that’s what makes us different and why we are chosen by so many well-known companies like Svitzer and OMMP, the Tunisian Port Authority. We learn from our own captains and engineers because we build for our own fleet as well. They tell us what works and what doesn’t work. It’s like building a race car and the driver says “Change this, change that. That should be better. This should be better.” That’s how we do it.

The VoltRA tug is the latest demonstration of Med Marine’s commitment to decarbonization in its vessels and operations. Tell us about that.

Yes, we are growing as a green company and our first focus, after the safety of our employees and our operations, is the environment. We even invested in solar energy in our shipyard! So we’re building clean ships in a clean environment and want our vessels to be environmentally friendly. VoltRA is our net-zero emissions vessel.

Where will the company be in, say, five or ten years? What’s the vision?

Well, we want to expand our fleet of tugs and tankers and also the product range of our shipyard – maybe add some other type of vessels, more niche products. We want to extend our market share while providing excellent service and constantly improving the quality and performance of our vessels.

But it’s hard to plan ahead in this business because, as noted earlier, you never know what's going to happen tomorrow. While everything is going well today, I know from even my own limited experience that it can change overnight. The important thing is to keep the business going from one generation to the next because it’s in our blood and we do it well.

We understand you do a lot of good work in the communities where you operate, especially in the field of education.

Yes, we built a high school and a kindergarten and are now building a second kindergarten where our shipyard is located. We help young students who come to our office and want to be sailors or engineers. We also go to seminars at universities and present our company and they say, oh, we want to come work for your company in the future. It’s very rewarding. We try to show them what a good life and good career path you can have in the maritime business, whether shoreside or at sea. And I’m a good example to them!

Tony Munoz is The Maritime Executive's publisher and editor-in-chief.