| Our industry has sailed “under the radar” for most of its recent existence. While romantic notions of old are gone, where the entire town would come to the waterfront to greet the latest ship bringing exotic goods, shipping has operated mostly unnoticed in recent years as people moved away from ports and took the complex logistics transportation system for granted. This shifted somewhat as shipping became a public investment vehicle, and the emergence of a 24/7/365 global news network where incidents and accidents are reported immediately. But shipping is coming into view for a new sector of the global market—corporate investors who either want to enter the transportation network in order to monitor its contribution to the sustainability of its own logistics chain, digital giants who seek to better understand the elusive maritime space to see how they can contribute, or logistics giants who are monitoring our industry to discern whether we are as efficient as possible. All three have the opportunity to be a helpmate—or an aggressor. We have long bemoaned the lack of visibility “suffered” by the industry. That invisibility is now over as shipping is scrutinized as a market of opportunity. We need to put our best effort into accelerating OUR progress and owning OUR future by accepting the helping hand and input from those who truly want to see our industry improve and preventing the incursion of those who seek to conquer to complete their own goals of world domination. Keep optimizing, Carleen | 
