MarineNews-2017-02

EQUIPMENT

I

t wasn’t too long ago that (retired) U.S. Coast Guard

ADM Jim Loy told me, “If you’ve seen one port, well,

you’ve seen one port.” That now-famous declaration was

made in reference to port security in a post-9/11 world,

but the quip is as valid now as it was when he said it during

his tenure as Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard. Simi-

larly, it can also be said that if you’ve seen one dredging

operation, well, then you’ve seen one dredging operation.

Port-to-port, coast-to-coast, on inland rivers, Great Lakes,

for environmental remediation, during storm restoration

operations and everything in between, no two dredging

assignments are exactly alike.

From the Bottom Up

No one knows that metric better than DSC Dredge

President/CEO Bob Wetta, who weighed in with Marine-

News in January. In the beginning, it was Thomas J. Wetta,

III (father of Bob & Bill Wetta) who was principal in a

now dissolved entity named Kenner Marine & Machin-

ery (KMM), incorporated in the early 1970s. In the late

1980s, the company went through a liquidation bankrupt-

cy. Prior to the liquidation, a friend/investor (Bob Dagley)

of Thomas Wetta opened a company named Dredging

Supply Company. The function of this company was to

take over the business model of KMM through hiring a

majority of the workforce and by obtaining knowledge of

dredge manufacturing through the employees. The verbal

agreement was that once the company was up and run-

ning, the Wetta family would purchase the company back.

An entire article could be written on how all that came

about, and how Bob Wetta ended up where he is today.

Dredging Supply would one day end up back under

Wetta ownership, a corporation with the name of Dredg-

ing Specialties, Inc. Dredging Specialties had minor opera-

tions/sales under it from 1992 to 1994, but the majority

of revenues came from Dredging Supply Company. Fast

forward to 1994, and Dredging Specialties dropped its

name and took over the name Dredging Supply Co., Inc.

Through merger of several related companies together over

those years, DSC Dredge, LLC was offi cially formed as

DSC Dredge Digs In

The world of dredging is defi ned by the vast diversity of each assignment that contrac-

tors perform on any given day. Fortunately, DSC’s standard line-up of dredge equip-

ment can be modifi ed and customized to meet just about any job that needs doing.

By Joseph Keefe

36 MN February 2017