This year, we are showcasing each winner of the National Boating Industry Safety Awards via an individualized blog that answers questions posed to each winner. This will allow our readers to get to know each of the winners and see some of their winning materials, too.

Our first Q&A blog comes to us from The Qualified Captain, a social media brand followed by over 980,000 people on Instagram making them the largest boating-related social media influencer. Most people don’t know that Aaron Stasiak is the man behind The Qualified Captain and he has provided his answers to these questions for us.

1. Congratulations on winning the National Boating Industry Safety Award! Can you please describe your winning entry for our audience?
   
   Thank you! We won the Social Media Boating Safety Influencer award. With our big popularity on social media, we utilize our following to promote boating safety tips.
   
   

2. How does winning this award help The Qualified Captain? What partnerships, media coverage or opportunities have you gotten because of it?
   
   This award helped us by showing our fans that we really do care about our fellow mariners, and that boating safety is a major concern of ours. If we can utilize our platform to remind people what can happen on the water, then we will do whatever it takes to keep the message going. We have partnered with a few big companies that have key tools on the market that can help you be safer on the water. We promote those products, and as a result, have received a lot of good social media coverage for doing so.
   
   
   
3. What inspired you to promote boating safety?
   
   I got inspired to do this by noticing how common the easily preventable mistakes were being made. We want to lower the number of accidents, and deaths on the water.
   
   
   
   
4. Did you set goals and objectives when you started The Qualified Captain? If so, what were they and did you meet those goals and objectives?
   
   Our goal for the past couple years is to do whatever it takes to remind people of the potential dangers of being on the water, and how to prevent common mistakes. We did so by sharing the sad but true stories, promoting new helpful equipment, explaining the benefits of having a Sea Tow membership, sharing boat education resources, and offering our trauma kits (shown above in the photo).  Knowing that we are the most popular influencer on social media in this industry, I felt like it was my obligation to do whatever we can to promote boating safety. We share stories, explain new regulations, and educate new boaters. We also saw a number of deaths on the water in the past 12 months. I wouldn't call these goals, but just a daily duty that we provide. An example of an educational video that we've produced is included below:
   
   

5. Are you working on any future boating safety projects or campaigns? If so, is there anything you can share about what you’re planning to do?
   
   Yes! We have a really sad but important story from a young boy who witnessed a death on the water. We are teaming up with him, and a few other partners to create a very good non-profit that will help provide just one simple piece of equipment to all local docks, waterways, and boat ramps that could help save a life. Stay tuned.
   
   Congratulations again to The Qualified Captain on winning the 2022 National Boating Industry Safety Award as the top Social Media Boating Safety Influencer! You can also check out the video of him accepting the award back in October below.