Page 56 - RedWhiteFleet_interiors_Sep10

AT THE HELM

om Escher, grandson of Tom Crowley and current one of the company’s tugboats, becoming a member of the PREVIOUS PAGES: The early
owner of the Red and White Fleet, grew up steeped Inlandboatmen’s Union (IBU) and sailing up and down the ticket booth displays a map of the
Tin the history of the family business. In 1960, at the West Coast. He then spent time in Alaska piloting a launch two Bay Cruise tours offered at the
age of thirteen, he began working for Crowley Maritime as and working in dispatch. Later, he worked in the company’s time: the White Line, which visited
the two bridges, and the longer Red
a dock sweeper and mechanics helper on board the vessels. engineering department, working on Red and White boats Line, which included an additional
For the first few years he helped out wherever he was needed, in the shipyards all through the 1970s and ’80s. swing around Angel Island.
whether painting vessels, cleaning the decks, working in the Escher’s earliest years were formative, and he considers
engineering shop, or shadowing various members of the himself fortunate to have grown up learning from his LEFT: Tom Escher, current
crew. At seventeen, he took his first job as a deckhand on grandfather. An early memory occurred on the shores of the owner of the Red and White Fleet,
manages the company with the
Marin Islands, which the Crowley family owned when Escher same determination and spirit of his
was a child. A boat that Escher and his grandfather were grandfather, founder Tom Crowley.
sailing approached the docks on a cold November day, and their first jobs. “My grandfather cared so much about his As Crowley Maritime expanded their cargo-transport
as he was reaching to tie up the boat, young Escher slipped OPPOSITE: Tom Escher poses community,” Escher says. “He wanted to help people whenever business and moved into new and increasingly international
and fell into the water between the boat and the dock. Acting with business partners (left) and he had the opportunity.” It wasn’t until after Crowley’s death in markets, their maritime-excursion business remained
immediately, his grandfather jumped into the water—despite receives a certificate of honor from 1970 that the full measure of his generosity began to surface. focused on the San Francisco Bay. By 1992, the company
the City of San Francisco for the
having on a heavy camel-hair winter coat—and pushed his Enhydra (right). The modern Red He was someone who gave quietly and always strove to do the had reorganized itself into two main business units, one with
headquarters based in Jacksonville, Florida, and the other
grandson underneath the dock to safety. The water-logged and White Fleet embodies the core right thing, a model that Escher and the Red and White Fleet with headquarters in Seattle, Washington. They were ready
coat nearly cost Crowley his life. Although his decades of of the sightseeing ethos that Tom still follow to this day. to move on from their origins in the San Francisco Bay. But,
experience at sea had made him well aware of this risk, he Crowley first established a century A childhood spent shadowing his grandfather—and like his grandfather, it was the people side of the business that
jumped into the water anyway—his only thought about his earlier: their mission is to provide a career’s worth of experience in the family business and captured Tom’s attention, and he wondered if there was a way
positive experiences that leave people
grandson. But that was who he was: someone who never with a taste of San Francisco and maritime industry—left Escher with a well-rounded sense of to preserve the initial spirit of his grandfather’s company. So
thought twice about putting his own life at risk to help others. lifelong memories of their time out the company his grandfather had built from a single boat and when Crowley Maritime moved to put the Red and White
Throughout Escher’s life, strangers have approached him on the Bay. taught him the economic and moral principles needed to run Fleet on the market, Escher stepped forward to keep that part
to thank him for his grandfather’s kindness and generosity, a successful business. Although Escher’s career took him to of his family’s tradition alive.
whether in paying school fees for children whose parents had other companies over the years, the family business was never “There were three offers to buy it,” remembers Escher.
passed away or helping hardworking local teenagers secure far from his mind.

56 • Red and White Fleet Evolution • 57