Theorizing Global Logistics: One Law-Led Maritime Panel at a Time
Disclaimer: Everything below is a mix of what I observed and heard during the event. The goal isn’t to pinpoint "who exactly said what," but to share (usually) an outsider's view and overall perspective on these industries. I’m not here to act as a definitive firsthand source—readers should do their own research. I hope this inspires you to attend events, explore new industries, and hear what leaders are presenting. These notes combine my observations with thoughts on how things could run smoother and how ideas connect (IMO). I’m not an expert, you know? Just hanging out in the room with them. Enjoy!Topics: Maritime Investments, Shipping, Competition with China, Shipyards, Global Trade, Trade Wars, Tariffs, US-Owned Ships vs. Chinese-Owned Ships, Global Ally Partnerships, Skills Training, Long-term Thinking, Decades Ahead, Economics and Markets
Wow, wow, wow! And I really mean it!! (Shoutout to (2?) blogs ago? 3? 2? I think 2 blogs ago. You can check for me. Wow! And I mean it. This was a fun event. I’m super interested in global trade. Why? Cause I believe bbbyq isn’t really dead, it’s part of Ryan Cohen’s goals to build an amazon competitor, and it’s just taking a while. I really believe there’s something huge coming with global ships, trade, and even manufacturing… we’re setting up a huge future. So… I went to 2.1 panels over the past 24 hours on sea-stuff, and the fascinating stuff was plentiful. I was very ‘behind’ on the news of the shipping world, and our country/government’s plans for everything… yet, this update I got at this event - FROM LAWYERS, themselves, is making me think plenty is on track for my theories to still be true. Yes, I think Gamestop’s leadership is building an amazon competitor? Why? Wel…I mean, he said he’s gonna do it, himself. And he’s a good leaders. And the literal government is supporting things to move in that direction. I’m hyped from reality! Each day, let’s go! :)
Why Attend? It’s some sorta innovation/tech themed week every week here in Seattle, and I love it!! So, let’s learn about the deep blue sea and some stuff related to it. I’ve got a few events this week to attend, but like I said above… I’m mega interested to be at least semi-knowledgable on this topic. So, mission ACCOMPLISHED!! :) And PS: it was a sold-out event, but I just showed up and asked if they had room for one more - they did!! (and they had room for like 20 more… 130+ registered, like 60 IRL). More below.
Overall Event Review: Venue (4.8/5), Food (4.5/5), Speaker Content (4/5), Networking (2.2/5), Likeliness to Return (4.8/5)
Photo Collage and Commentary
Notes From the Event
Panel on Global trade and logistics. Informative and timely.
Two panels will happen. The first has a theme and the second also has a theme. The second theme is about Finance. The first I didnt’ hear but let’s see if we can figure it out.
= Now I asked for permission to join this and they let me in. I wanna go to another event today thats super exclusive and only allowing 30 people in it… but… this one let me in and maybe the next would too.
This city has a huge history of maritime.
= True!
There was a lot of audio problems at the beginning but now it’s good. They said they have so much to cover and so little time. Sounds like they’ll be talking about regulatory stuff… and these peopel are in niche areas of this niche industry
WOW with people here from DC and NYC and HOUSTON! Wow. The gang is all here, huh? I didn’t even know exactly waht I’m getting myself into but I jsut am hyped about Teddy hahahah. And Flexbort. But let’s see.
Okay this guy has lived in Norway, worked on ships, and he’s in NYC now and he ranges from compliance to enforcement!! aNd today top 5 primary issues of industry and clients + the ones coming
Hahah dang stop the pirates!
They’re seeing a sea change with this administration. But for compliance and something else…
- the maritime sector has the attention of the White House. Sometimes its liek “Be careful what you wish for you may get it”
BRO me too - I’m keeping an eye on it cause of stuff I think is going on - glad to hear this
He said the goal is to counter China, build up US dominance in Ai, critical minerals, and enforemcent
-BROWoowowwo hahahah. See this is why I’m here.
More environmental (idk) and tariffs.
The second industry is maritime as a policy lever
Omg I’m laughing cause his intro is such a get into he’s making sure he says it hahaha right? Like look at this intro he’s into #2
Okay #2 was about China, watch the “ships act” reintroduced but we expect more movement on that in 2026.
Third is the use of the ocean. The net zero framework at the IMO… we saw essentially a pause with those discussions with a vote next year. That will give industry time to shape what that may look like going forward.
Maybe even a maritime fuels challenge, that may change, and people in the room may know more than that and you see maritime and energy working closer
Also lines up with my theories
Now something has a lot of attention at the highest levels in DC. More discussion on how to use the ocean… alternative power, wave energy, maybe nuclear? Its considered a top contender repositioning itself into the maritime sector.
And lastly, 5, the continued issues with compliance with the jones act and (?) coast wives trade? That’s worth watching in DC discussions on if it’s still viable and needs to be changed. But right now there’s a lot of support but compliance with he jones act remains critical.
Next guy says he’s loud enough not to use the mic. He says he’s the most boring lawyer up here, he used to be a marine but it has nothing to do with this.
He wanted to be a hedge fund lawyer, thought it was boring, thought this was more fun and so here we were.
He joined 7 months ago with a team of 9, “for this”
For speaking on panels? It’s common for newbies.
What we do is any kind of financing of ships, straight bank loans, representing European banks in shipping loans… and then the market started to change, private equity came in.
Then the Chinese leasing houses expanded. They started advancing 90$% on vessels, owners only had to put in 10%.
Wasn’t (idk what he said) world economy and changing regulations but it drove the European banks out of business cause they caou’dnt do it as cheap and with as much money.
The Chinese leasing house owns this ship.
How do tehy get around this?
How does this work?
As far as the assets we finance, we’re all experts in the jones act.
Depending on administration we manage off shore (this or that? Drilling or something?)
Okay - next person talks. A woman fro mDC and she says in 2 weeks her daughter hes playing lacrosse at the naval academy and thats as close as she comes.
She works in energy and commodities regulatory attorney.
Started off helping clients importaing/producting geernatl liquid commodities around the world.
One of the first big projects she had in the maritime world is the reduction of sulfur levels nad EPA zones in teh USA. Helping clients figure out how to ratchet down the sulfur level of the bunker they’re using and udnerstnaidn other areas that had lower sulfur requirements too. Really interested the IMO. The zero proposal that was postponed last week… that is such a more complicated program than the lower sulfur proposal was, and that was pretty complicated as it was.
So, I’m optimistic that this next year gives the proponents of the program to really figure out how we can get it over the finish line even with Trump still as president, how do we make sure that there is the available fuels, a wide variety of them for countries like the USA where domestic energy is really important. How can we let them support that and use this proposal to really help domestic.
There are a lot of boxes that could be checked as the phase in looks a little different but hopefully get it across the finish line and get to the goals that the program has.
Last person to talk is a partner at the office and he literally looks like the guy who checked everyone in hahah. Liek he is bother..
He’s an outside the energy perspective on the industry and what he’s seeing in the low carbon jewel space. Over the last 3-4 years under Biden, now with this change in administration, lets see what we’re seeing on the ground in the USA in terms of multibillion dollar low carbon ammonia, hydrogen, and put it all together for you so you kinda understand what the picture is. What it looks like under the prior administration, the next administartoni of right now… but in terms of my millerary bonified. He wanted to be a marine but he has a hearing loss in the right ear.
Then he says says once you get out you can’t hear. The guy who was in the military and he said his wife all the time says “what”? Lol
She says several of you are menitining China. It’s in many of our discussions from the USTR fees and the counter-china shippingps act. It’s certainly been in the news for a variety of reasons. You mentioned the influx of leasing transactions with leasing houses.
How has the current trade wor impacted your work in the leasing areas?
He said he was hopeful it’d be the rebirth of straight bank and alternative financing but it hasn’t been. We’ve seen historically European banks lend anywhere from 60-90% of the asset value depending on the market. They started loaning more when vessels were high… and then eventually figured it out.
But as china started building the ships, they realized they could get into finance too. The owner put 90% and then china financed. Probably more ships are financed that way today than with straight bank or credit bank.
But when the new USDR came out - when it was Chinese owned or built… well, what does that mean? What does Chinese-owned mean? If you look at the registered owner, it’s got the name of a Chinese owne entity that owns the ship.
So the calls we’re doing is “how do I avoid this? How do I undo this?”
They said, buy the ship with the early purchase option and then refinance.
The banks dont’ have the interest they used to have.
And alternative assets are at 10% and the Chinese got it at low single digits.
So.. what are the risks?
We haven’t seen people shy away from it yet. We just saw a group out of Singapore order half a billion ships from Chinese yards. Where are they coming? To the USA? Yes. We have the consumer economy here.
Chinese build quality vessels and probably pas it onto the consumer at the end of hte day.
I thought we’d see a huge change and that’d be how I rode towards the end of my career.
We haven’t seen it and seems to be peopel’s preferred method of financing.
And then another guy speaks up saying
We have a diverse collection of attendees. But if you havne’t been following it,
At the conclusion of a 1year investigation… now there are fees imposed on Chinese-linked vessels. Built there, owned, operated
The fees went Ito force last week (ohhhh I see)
It’s based on calculateions like tonnage.
In practice, vessels could be paying 1M per port call.
Why do this?
. The USA has bene looking for ways to revitalize its maritime sector.
Last Friday ast a conference… we have 0.04% of the world ships!! China has about 11,000 and we have about 100. SO this is all part of a longterm strategic effort which includes ship building, the work force, the mariners to work on the ships
Part of a broader national defense strategy too.
Do we have ships we can call on/. Do we have to call out to foreign vessels? Let’s avoid that but how do you get there/
There’s a big road to developing ships.
That was part of it, broader strategy and targeting china because of waht the USTR found to be unfair practices.
The fees are intended to go back into the maritime industry.
But what we realized last week was that the USA government didnt’ take a recommendation nd dint make a trust fund, so it’s going into the general treasury.
Custoer did work sa way to get a payment portal. But it goes into the eneral treasury.
And oits a bit harder to then pull it backout and put it back into its intended purpose.
Part of hte issue that came out of this was the notice of action, they promulgated to publish this. TIt had a number of inconistenceis and ambiguities… we were optimistic we’d get some form of guidance on this, these terms… waht does an “operatOr” mean, etc/
As of Friday, part of the issue was they could not get the direction from the top. This has White House level direction ,principals within the versions agencies.
It didnt’ help that there was.a government shutdown right before.
SO what does that mean to us here or around the country? We’re still in this long-term process of a number of initiatives that re arintended to build up the maritime industry.
It’s a number of legal measured, policy, and strategy.
We’re still in the midst of it. ITs intended to help.
But it’s almost identical counter measures that China is doing.
The maritime industry is squarely within the trade wards and we expect this to continue
WOW great comment and addition, my guy. THnak you
Also woman says, along with china,
Altermnative Marine fuels and whats going on with the IMO… the framework has bne pushed back for a year but it’ll undoubtedly be (idk waht she said)
Okay - so what are the main types of low carbon marine fuels you’re dealing with in your work. What are their advantages and disadvantages? What’s driving that?
Okay - she says she’ll kick it off.
In the USA overall I’ve seen most biofuels, renewable diesel being used in maritime use.
Biodiesel is limited because it’s only added up to liek 10-20% in marine fuel. It can freeze up and ruin engines.
But when you have drop in fuel it’s a big difference.
The first and highest use of fuels is for on-road use.
Okay I feel liek this really doesn’t apply to me. I’m kinda bored by talking about chemicals and fuels. SO I wanna zone out a little till something is more intesting. Cause I jsut wrote A LOT from those guys before. That was super interesting.
Oh wait - she’s talking about “e-fuels”
SAF - aviation fuel?
Hm.
I didnt know there were so many kinds
Solar and wind are disadvantaged under this administration.
Our data centers in the USA are growing exponentially.
Okay the next speaker says he wants to take a step back and explain what the low carbon fuels out there being used and proposed to be used on ocean-going vessels. That the critical thing, and so basically… you have, waht do you call it? Ultra low sulfur jewel? So… when we talk about low carbon thats a step in the right direction anyway. The industry is workign to reduce its emissions… and you’re starting to see a lot more L&G powered vessels.
Some ship builders are looking at low-carbon methanol and low-carbon ammonia.
Then the low-carbon world is a candy-assortment of options.
As the industry tries to decide… well, the ultimate goal would be to use hydrogen.
All of these goals have challenges. In this global world, some make sense for some, some make sense for others.
In the low carbon world, even “e-fuels” or green fuels… it means you used a net-zero source to make hydrogen. DO you remember your high school chemistry class? In this low carbon world, all we are talking about is chemistry.
Remember where hydrogen is on the periodic table?
No.
Its first.
Oh.
Yes, it’s lightest. It light, it’s small. And it’s corrosive, or another way to say it is because it’s so small it can work its way through most materials. It’s so small it can explode and so volitile.
He’s talking still about methane and chemicals. But I was just looking out the window and at the pamphlet for a while.
He says methane is 80 times worse than carbon dioxide.
Have emissions in the USA gone up or down in the past 25 years? Gone down. But it’s not going to happen overnight but we need tech to help us figure it out and reduce the cost.
In teh business world all we care about is the cost
And I know I’m talking too much, but what’s good about ammonia, what she chemical equation?
What’s good about that equation? - (idk what they said)
One hard thing is there’s not carbon emissions but the qualities are that what? Ridiculously toxic and energy dense. SO we’re looking at ocean-going vessels and trying to deploy some of these technlogies.
Okay - I got distracted again and he says he hopes that was helpful.
The next person says - I wanna add - “how do we get there?”
What… this is the chicken and egg
We want to develop new fuels
We dont’ have regulations that mandate them
Where is the investment and the return? Right now the VC isn’t ready to go ask the government for new regulations for all these… so the stick vs. carrot ideas is the sustainable maritime challenge….
We’ve thought of it, we’re not there yet. With the department of energy. It’s still being discussed.
So waht can you do about this? Look at pending legislation. Talk to congress.
It’s a hard time to have these conversations like this in DC using terms like “sustainability” and “decarbonization.
Nuclear seems like a Hennessy to get to net future. Many think we can’t get there without nuclear. I”ve never seen a fuel move so fast. We just had a UK/US agreement signed about month ago . Trying to promote the cross-boundary work on this .
His buddy is out there speaking on this almost weekly trying to promote it.
Look at these emerging fuels relating to nuclear.. ITs going to need an infrastcuture in that.
We need financing, how do you get there? What are the incentives?
We’re in a world where you have to compare incentives like handouts. It fits into national security and
We’ve got a new administration now, same ideas, different terminology.
Okay so now they wanna do one last question, but then also Q&A with 15 min left.
What trends do you see into 2026?
Focus on compliance and what that means in a current evironment of enforcement. There are new enforcement mechanisms out there. Enforcement can be very expensive.
Pressure not much from the government regulations as much as pressure from the shareholders of hte constituencies of our clients. We see focus from the European banks who have a mandate from their country, maybe Norway, saying “you can’t finance dirty assets anymore” thats where we see it. We see a miniscuel discount.
SO to motivate the ship owners you have to make it economically viable. And then alternative credit doesn’t care, so you’ve got the balancing act… then even the exon mobile and such who see a long-term view at the end from fossil fuels. They want a green, the greensest ship they can get. Not an old polluting ship.
We’ll continue to see that from economic sources from the private sector to get cleaner. That’ll motivate ship owners. How can they get it next.
Banks generally see conversation as an equity risk
This guy is talking so long and it’s just the end right now. He’s been talking like 5 minutes I this last question. Part of me was like “uh oh girl… are you sure you wanna ask that ‘last question’?
OMG theres a guy in the audience literally hunched over and sweeping. Liek fully folded over and sleeping - lol it’s so awkward. He’s sleeping on his knees in the chair. He must be so tired. Just leave hahah. Right? Go to a more comfy chair.
Okay these guys are still answering their last question… the third person is talking now. And she’s been talking a while but says she won’t be surprised if we have more alliances with friendly countries.
Now the last guy is up, he says in the industry transition world, it’s been a sea change (lol he said that earlier to start. A sea change. Is that a saying? It must be… liek a “big change”)
Prior to the pandemic there were a lot of tax incentives and lots of projects across the golf coast.
Then the new administration had hydrogen and wind that was a 12M project (now he’s just mumbling his words so much talking about ammonia dn global markets and idk what) and he says his trader buddies trading methanol, if someone wants to buy it they’ll buy it. A global commodity. Now the new administration its changed. And the reality is that hte last administration was.. becoming… like the data center gold rush. Massive capital coming in. 3 years ago that was hydrogen. There was a consolidation between the real players.
Idk what he’s talking about but now he’s just talking super super fast. Triyng to fit as many words as he can into this time. But.. now it’s totally cutting into Q&A and they have no break planned between the two panels. Not even a bathroom or tea/coffee break. So… let’s see how it goes. This guy, again, is talking so much.
The cost of using water and converting it to hydrogen is just too much. In the jewels world, all teh chemicals have hydrogen and you have a net zero thing and it didnt make economically make sense and the new administration is doing something that makes sense. And no why the carbon capture tax credit, tehy increased the value of utilization to the mperminancy… the name of the game is to create industry
- LINES UP WITH MY THEORIES
- we need to figure out how to reduce carbon int o the atmosphere, and humans don’t change until all else has failed and lots of peopel are dying.
We need carbon permanently sequestered underground… but do youkno where it’s all coming from? Underground, from the dinosaurs.
Okay - so now this guy in the audience asked:
You’ve seen the SouthKoreans invest in Philly, Finnish in the coast guard… do you see any foreign investments going beyond DOD or is this just department of defense investments into other ship building?
A guy says: in terms of what it means, big picture… to the USA ship building, this is a priority of this administration and congress.
To revitalize ship building. There are criticisms and questions… why Finland and South Korean instead of the USA first? We don’t have the capacity or technology. We haven’t built an ice breaker in 50 years.
At least I’m hearing from the industry in DC… less emphasis on foreign investment and dependent, see if they can offer more technical capabilities. And focus on US investments and building up a USA base.
It’ll continue and be more robust. The Italians are investing in the Great Lakes.
We don’t have the tech or manpower yet, so it’ll continue and be properly monitored. ITs the way forward, to get this started quickly. We didnt’ yet talk about the investigation.
The investigation started under the Biden administration. But they clearly agree we need more US investment in shipping. More than 78 US ships in the global fleet. If we want to do this as a nation, we’re going to have to lean on friendly countries to invest or educate. We don’t have enough welders to build the ships we want to build.
We need to import people for now to teach. We need to tech, we need to manpower.
Ive had more inquiries about then in the past 1 years than I got in my entire first 26.
Talk more about the fuels… is this the same as the DOEs program? You mentioned it and dint go into it.
And then someone in the room here will talk about that later.
I notice this room is split up into two groups, and the left half of the room has almost 30 people and only 1/5th or less are women. On my half of the room it looks about the same.
They said they’ll have a reception after this - cause now it’s running late, I just zoned out looking at the analytics of my website hahah. Cause I have so many international visitors and have liek 17 views from France yesterday and idk why haha. So, that distracted me a little. Maybe it was indexing or something. Okay now they have a tiny break. I’ll get more to drink. Then let’s hear more from thepeopel!!
Okay, I got a fresh tea and the girl who I had the weird last interaction with is here again! I just waved her a quick hello and went and sat back down. No need to do more than that, we’ll see each other again and let’s see how it goes next time. But, I’m glad at least I said hi.
Okay now they’re introducing the panel of 4… they’re talking about who each of these people are…but this room is extremely freezing - and… let’s see what it says on the schedule. Okay… apparently it is about Finance, Ai and Energy - within Maritime.
Wild. Hahaha - we just talked about all of those topics in the last panel, right? Hahhaa
Right now they said one of the girl is talking about debts and stuff in maritime… but part of me is liek Wait a minuteeee - we literally just heard about all those topics, too. But, I’m sure it’ll be different
WOW this girl is a part of the “Women in Trade and Shipping” organization hahaha. I wanna join that! :) hahah jk. but, it sounds interesting!
Okay so the first questions: explain how IP, Government, Ai… how its impacting maritime clients in your area and how its developing..
This guy speaking says he represents anyone getting money from the federal government and theres tremendous opportunity, especially companies that never did work for hte federal government, they can step into that role
This guy almost talked to me earlier, he was like “nice view huh?” And I said “yeah amazing” and then he said something about whatever and walked away like one second after we made eye contact. Now he’s up on stage.
There’s a lot of money going to be poured into redeveloping the maritime industrial base.
It’d behoove companies to move into this space.
Monitor grants.gov
What!? Thats a website???
Anytiem you’re moving into federal contracting, but no hurdles are insurmountable. Get the right attorney, maybe the guy talking to you right now. It’s not an impossible shift to go from a commercial supplier to a federal govenremtn supplier. IT shoudl at least be considered by companies. Smaller domestic companies have opportuntiy, but foreign maritime companies we’ve talked a bit about.
Certainly you’re starting to see that. It, again, is achievable if hte foreign country is willing to dybess. You have to do it the right way and you’re already starting to see it.
There’s no way we can get to the point we want to be - stand up to china, we’re not at war but constantly competing for global dominance. And we can’t do that with out foreign partners and companies that come from allied nations
Now this next speaker is a federal lobbyist
OMG wowwwww this guy is tall btw and has his hair parted on the side and glasses. He looks liek blonde pee wee Herman + bill nye + younger but old. Like a baby face. He’s handsome, you know, typical. Just like, i’m SO curious about Lobbyists!! like 100% so i’m like - okay, waht is this guy doing… cause your appearance is so much a part of being a lobbyist!! right?
Opportunties exist today that didn’t exist a while back
But there are now opportunities unlike what we’ve sen over teh last several decades. There is change happening in the maritime industry. Tech is coming n board.
A need for greater movement of goods internationally, pushing industry to come up with new innovation and investments
Complimentary we have an administration pushing for a resurgence of US manufacturing unlike what we’ve seen in 30-40 years or longer
BROOOO THIS IS TEDDY THIS IS TEDDY HAPPENING - right? RCEO
Through new tech, access to greater vessels for movements of good. Its important to note manufacturing does mean big ticket items (like container ships)… we’d previously thought manufactoruign goods wasn’t good, put it to other countries with lower costs.
Pushing those to other countries
But now theres an impression that key markets, having that in the USA, its critical form the ability to provide jobs to American workers. We’ve lost that as a country.
Allow policies to let US awareness opportunities going forward.
At hte policy and political level, there’s a loss to know how to do that.
The voice of everyone in this industry has a big opening to be conveyed to policy members.
They say they have a lot of dollars to push towards that effort, this is the budget reconciliation bill. Likely another will pass in 2025. The budget reconciliation process only - idk what he said
He said likely things will change during the midterm election.
It’s likely that Trump will take another 1 or 2 tries to pass additional funding there.
If this industry is a focus with complimentary movements, maritime and shore-base tech will be a focus of this as well. IT’sll drive change and oppotutnies for you all to contribute.
Okay now there are still 2 more people to introduce themselves. BTW we’re over 15 minutes into this speech. They’re running late.
Okay - he said almost daily he sees “ai” - it’s having a profound effect on how companies handle their data, new startups.
He said that since he brought up ai, he felt he shoudl say this is written by ai - but it wasn’t.
Wer’e at the cutting edge of a new technology. Intellectual property ownership with things that AI develop - is it the author of a paper? Software code? Its making its way through hte courts, patent office
I remember this tour - at the trademark and patent office in Virginia. That’s true, they’ve got a whole huge wave latley, huh?
It says that generative Ai can now attack you better than ever before. They can mirror your cadence.
But as with any developing tech, there are use cases. Automating schedules, offloading, managing fuels, trying to be more efficient. Startups are emerging daily.
A boom similar to the dot—com boom, just hopefully not a bust similar.
The ongoing challenge is balancing the innovation, staying on the cutting edge. And countries liek China are workign to catch up or beat us.
Personal information and privacy that can interfere, issues like that. ITs another perspective on tech important in the coming years.
Okay finally is the last girl, she’s part of asset finance. And one of her biggest developments is “whats going on?” With US ship building, and is this ripe for investment?
- right now, it’s not economically viable.
If you’re looking to buy or build a ship… for those vessels involved in international trade its not economically viable, too expensive, not the workforce (you name the reason)
We do build tankers. Philly shipyard is an example. It could cost 250M here… and cost 50M in China or Korea, to level-set where we are with that. And, I know the various reports that have been published this year cite between 70-80 vessles… and as far as shipyard in teh USA, we have 100 here in the USA. They’re focused on smaller vessels involved in the jones-act trade. The bigger ones are maybe built for the US government. Tug and barge… in the past we saw off-shore wind as a potential option… but now we’ve canceled liek 500M instillation vessel. That’s what we’ve been building
Dang 500M cancelled? That ruined someone’s day… but, maybe worth it? Right? Thats a huge investment.
One of hte most improtant things about ship-building in the usa… if there’s no financial incentive it’s difficult to get people to do it.
I’m stepping away from this real quick mentally - wanna order some Kelly Tutors stickers :). Theres a huge discount on the company I use. Shiny stickers hahah. So I’ll get those and then carry on.
Btw this moircorphone is crazy. SHe’s holding it SUPER SUPER close to her mouth so it’s like every breath and all of her P’s are super super scratchy. Everything she’s saying is so scratchy. If she held the mic liek 3 inches further from her mouth it’d be better. This is a clip-on mic you’re supposed to wear on your shirt but she has it right up against her lips.
BTW they’ve been introducing themselves so much so far that it’s 25 minutes into the time for this speech… and yeah - we are finally done with introductions.
How are industry leaders adapting to Ai and autonomous vehicles.
Now someone in the audience front row asked her to keep distance from the microphone - he sys much better. After she tests it.
The traditional investor and lenders, when we think of them, we have European banks, private banking… not looking to invest in new tech. Traditional banks aren’t really interested in these
600M series C building a naval yard to build autonomous vessels. Those are the players helping make the shift.
With the help of government funding and intervention
Many problems with Ai include hallucinating, like when ai wants to provide an answer (even any answer) versus not just saying “I don’t know”
You dont’ want your autonomous vessel to plan a route based on bad data.
So we need data integrity.
Right? Predicting customer and consumer patterns… your also is only as good as your data.
Your data is one of your most important assets with Ai… and your competitors. Protect it from being exposed.
Bad actors have better tools to get it out of you.
We’re learning what’s going to work and not going to work.
We’re not just chatgpt or Dall-e… it’s Ai’s focused on a specific task or industry. For example, a medical Ai, cutting out any other data. Just really targeted sections. Versus more generalized which was more common when everything started.
As these approaches change, how do you see it affecting federal procurement?
- right now nothing in the federal procurement rules that govern the use of Ai… so I’d expect to see some rules with Ai eventually. I’ve also already started to see in solicitations, when the government is tryin gto purchase something and set out he rules and evaluating.
I’ve started to see notices and the agency is going to use Ai to evaluate the proposal in some fashion, in some part of hte proposal. When you see that, you need to be even more vigilant with making sure the human is correct.
We’ve all experienced the hallucinations. And btw Ai is absolutely aweful for any legal citations, its made up, different rule… you still need to pay us for sure
He keeps promoting hinmse.f, but just last week we heard from the amazing legal team with ai bots that can help you in hours instead of months… so idk how long these guys will have their job if they’re having this much trouble… right? Idk.
He says there’s a big opportunity for joint-ventures for teaming. Maybe if you don’t normally get involved with military acquisitions, team up with the defense contractor.
Be careful about the subcontracts, make sure their intellectual property is protected.
Any time you’re confronting these situations, you have to think about legal services as an investment. You don’t want to be penny wise and pound foolish, be protected on the backend. It’s always helpful to engage council and make sure you’re being protected.
I’m like dude, is this guy low on his bills or what? He is so pushy with his services.
Thats the guy who didnt talk to me for long earlier. Maybe he thought it was too poor to hire him off of first glance, lol. geeze. and he’s only looking for clients? thats my guess/take. Thats the vibe i’m getting from all o fthis combined.
What’s going to happen today, tomorrow is hard to even say that will happen next year.
Let’s look at macro, and then we jsut see how he feels when he wakes up in the morning. He sees this as when he leaves in 3 years, he want to be known as a president who revitalized manufacturing across all industries in the USA. It is hard, it takes a long time. He has to set a course that will be sustainable and regardless of political winds, it’ll set us up with more USA manufacturing and transporting them in vessels manufactured in teh USA. It’s important to look backk at the “one big beautiful bill” that included significant funding for government-owned vessels.
Yeah it’s so freezing in this room.
As we look at congress and are tracking , there are 10b in DOF vessels in teh more traditional space, on and under the sea. There was about 1/3 importantly to note, about 3.5 in unmanned vessels. An investment int hat reconciliation bill. Over not he coast guard size, over 14B in Arctic cutters which Sean mentioned before.
The are significant enough it’ll cause shipbuilders to look at a place where they can be built.
The civil defense fusion, where industries can support military and civil, that’s what he’s trying to push.
TO revitalize ship-building facilities to build a destroyer today that we could be constructing tomorrow. We need a concentration of experts for welding and design to apply to both industries. We’re looking to comeback to that in the next budget reconciliation bill.
So, often times teh rules that typically apply - maybe the ships act, it’s difficult to offset spending, it’s not required here.
We’re going to see commercial maritime investments in the next budget reconciliation
-oakyyyy let’s see those investments in commercial maritime
DO you see a specific role in private/public partnerships? Manufacturing? AI? Automous vehicles? Ship building?
The government is dfeitneily looking at this (says the lobbyist) if the US isn’t also putting money it, its not a good invesmtne. We dont want the goerenmetn to make risky ivnesmtenst we don’t need. We’re looking for strong signals and we’re gonna change the maritime industry and every other industry.
These peopel in the office are talking to the investor community and seeing where is the greatest growth. YOu’ve got 3.5 year to make an impact and the worst thing he could do is look back and say govvernemnet spending didnt even change the economy or USA. So the P3 will be critical going forward, and signaling waht you want. Not just a handout. But hers’ the change you’re driving backed up with private dollars.
Even historically, the government regulation and intervention in the USA… the government drives shipping. Why did we never build bigger ships? Why did we never build ship yards
One of the biggest driver to get a ship into the USA… if you flag your ship in the USA, teh gov will pay you a fee monthly to have your vessel available for national security.
These aren’t government hands out, you go through the process, and they help supplement you.
Those types of programs are going to be important
- yeah, true. That’s intersting
China become a maritime dominating power.
Chinese legislation said they were literally trying to do this. So we basically have to do the same thing. Targeted and done with the private sector. You need the private investment, the yards, the labor force, and hte government to get involved with broker deals and foreign peopel who know how to do these things. It’s very important.
How are you seeing federal contractors respond to these policy initiatives?
As we have discussed (this is the guy who blew me off earlier )
- all that stuff is essentially designed to break down the barriers so that companies can easily get involved in federal contracting, everything is written in plain English.
If you think of the kinda classical view of when the American manufacturing sector was at its fined, it was WW2. Who was manufcating ammunitions? Supplies? Not full-time defense contractors.
GM was manufacturing bombs. Commercial companies answered the call.
There are certain desires to bring that back.
We don’t want companies with 100% of their revenue from government contracts. That model gets worse and worse with more and more contracting dollars flowing to a smallernumber of companies and they’re not getting the job done. SO there’s a push to move away from that and you’ve seen that with the regulatory framework overhaluled and reduced to encourage these companies to step into the public sector space.
BTW now they’re down to 15 more minutes of this speech time left (I have a call at/around noon, so I’m hyper time-aware)
He said the trend now is guarded-optimism. Some trends can change almost daily. The government is still deciding where it wants to fall with these technologies and states have this call as well, in regards to Ai. There Amy be state regulation of Ai but that was stripped in teh senate. California was really aggressive, Texas is more hands off.
Theres an ongoing push and pull of federal and state governeemtns.
THers a more restricted view or china takes a more open view.
As far as advising clients, its not quite the Facebook/meta of go fast and real things, but know your risk tolerance.
Be willing to live with a little bit of risk. Allocate and budget for it, and talk to your lawyers.
Okay - now the host is saying a bit of a wrap up sentence. She says you all bring such diverse expertise… but now let’s open it up tot he floor. OMG a guy jumps right on.
He said where is the US gov with the jones act and some requirement?
This is a great question… in any of these where autonomy is merging with (he represents way, or autonomous aricracts) these are highly regulated. In maritime they’re regulated internationally, a new degree of difficulty.
- this is very challenging, so I’d say that what we often do with clients in autonomy, what are your barriers to growth, this highly regulated sector, whats not allowing you to achieve what you’re designing to achieve. And then tell teh government the top 3 things and if you dont’ do it we can’t experience it.
Usually the federal government is dying to have this info
We all want to be the leader, this country, but the government doesn’t often know where/how to prioritize.
Across the various regulated industries. This shows the Ukraine conflict, autonomy is necessary for national security.
Same in the air.
As a country we have more reason than before. Not just cutting costs, but in fact essential to our future and for our country to lead. And for them to stack their info off our our tech. aNd we want them building off our tech, not china or Russia or some other country.
- Okay - I’m getting so burnt out from typing. I”m just gonna close my computer hahaha. I”m so tired. Lsat night I didn’t get more than like 5 hours of sleep then my daughter woke up so early (but she’s probably legit napping right now at daycare) so yeah, I wanna be done typing for these last 10 minutes of this speech. Hope they say nothing too crazy, but if so - I’ll write it down.
I may go get myself some lunch soon - or go home, or try to go to one more thing.
But they said but if you have a good idea - be aggressive to put it in front of the government. Huge potential for upside. :). True for me.
Overall Event Review Elaborated:
Venue (4.8/5), I’d never been to THIS location in this building before - WOW. Minus the fact it was freezing inside, like… 10/10 amazing place.
Food (4.5/5), THey had nice tea choices ( i had two cups of green tea) though they ran out of hot water fast - I literally had to tell the hosts: uh… I think I took the last of your hot water. So, much later, anohter canister came.
Speaker Content (4/5), yeah. for a non-industry person, the talks were at a good level (a little too advanced and niche sometimes, like talking about e-fuel… but overall, really really informative and amazing. But duh! that’s lawyers. Every word is intentional. I’d expect nothing less from true lawyers, and they did a good job.). My late business partner was a lawyer and I have extreme repect for her always and am so grateful to have met her and been a light in her eye, vise versa. I think of her almost every day still haha. So part of me feels like I’m an honorary lawyer just in spirit.
Networking (2.2/5), Well… I saw two people I knew. Waved at one and actually, was blown off by the other hahaha. That’s the theme lately. I saw both of those people twice at two different evnets over the past 5 days. But, randomly related to the woman I was just referring to above, she used to always say, “you either love me or you hate me” - you know? And my main life’s goal isn’t to “make friends” - its to do great work. And it’ll prove itself over tiem. This is a small city and I’m happy to work hard on good goals wit whoever is willing, you know? And if we’re not clicking at the time, that’s fine. I’m patient and I’ll keep working on my things in the meantime. Let’s see if we ever do good work together in the future. I’m here :)
Likeliness to Return (4.8/5) - yeah I literally loved this venue hahaha. And I bet they may even host more events after seeing how manageable this turnout was (and I bet they got the thrill feeling from feeling like they sold otu an event, but then didn’t, I bet they’d wanna challenge themselves again). Idk why, its just an epic venue and they were hyped about having even more speeches that day… so I could see them doing even more from here on out. I hope so ahahhaha> i just liked that view so much :)
Until next time, I wish you the motivation and success to search for opportunities around your area. Search and explore: Who is out there giving talks? There are new things happening all of the time.
Find relatable or interesting topics you like and check them out! Maybe even something hosted at a cool venue, if there’s no other reason to go. Let’s see what you can learn and discover not too far from home. 😊
