The Sea Tow Foundation™ is showcasing the winners of the 2024 National Boating Safety Awards via individualized blog posts that answer specific questions posted to each winning company.

Whitman Marine Training won the 2024 National Boating Safety Award in the category of Top Community Boating Education Program.

      1. Please briefly describe your winning entry and tell us about the process of creating/launching it.

Whitman Marine Training was established in 2007 by Captain Paul Whitman to deliver boats and yachts throughout the Northeast. We hosted our first boating safety class on March 2, 2019, which was the largest in-person boating safety class hosted in New Jersey in all of 2019. The global pandemic forced us to create a new way to certify New Jersey boaters, and we were approved to proctor online tests. Today, we offer a variety of boating safety courses, boat tours, and on-the-water training modules along the Delaware River in New Jersey. Our courses are designed to meet New Jersey's boating safety requirements and go beyond, providing comprehensive training for individuals aged 13 and above.

       2. What inspired your company to promote boating safety? Was this the first time doing so or have there been previous boating safety promotions?

Captain Paul's inspiration for promoting boating safety stemmed from his lifelong passion for boating and a desire to fill a gap in comprehensive boating training. His previous boating safety work included assisting boaters at Farley Marina as a teenager and teaching public boating safety classes with the USCG Auxiliary. These events fueled his commitment to improving boating safety education, but he also saw the need for a more engaging and interactive approach to teaching boating safety, which led to the creation of Whitman Marine Training.

      3. What does winning this award mean for your company?

Winning this award proves that the hard work I have done, and continue to do, shows that Whitman Marine Training can compete, not only with our counterparts throughout the state, but also on the national stage.

       4. Is your company working on a new boating safety project or campaign to debut in 2025? If so, can you share any of the details?

We are currently working on a couple of new items for 2025 that includes a series of boat ramp instructional videos as well as developing online webinars on a variety of boating-related topics.

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