Smooth sailing for Fred Cummings
It figures: Fred Cummings wraps up a 43-year career in the Great Lakes shipping industry and what's the first thing he does?

Takes a boat ride.

This time, though, it's not a laker. Cummings, who retired in July as marine superintendent for the Duluth-based Great Lakes Fleet, headed west for an Alaskan cruise.

Unwinding — getting his head out of a business that's consumed nearly every waking moment since 1960 — is going to be difficult for Fred Cummings. "First thing I'm going to do is throw away the cell phone," he said shortly before his final day with the fleet. "No more voice mail, either."

Fred Cummings

Meanwhile, true to form, he was trying to find some way to get permission to check out the bridge and engine room equipment on the cruise ship he and his wife Karin would be boarding in Vancouver, B.C.

"I want to see what they've got," he said. "Not just as a tourist while the boat's laying idle at the dock. I've gotta see it work. Not easy, though, with all these new security regulations since 9/11."

My money's on Fred.

He's too big (6-foot-3, 250 pounds) to be ignored and too insistent to be denied.

Knowing what's going on, speaking his mind, making things happen, diving into fray — those are the indelible signatures of Cummings' long career, a lifetime of work dedicated to the fate and fortunes of one company, the Great Lakes Fleet.

There's a quote whose origin I can't find, but it might as well have been coined for him: "He might not always be right, but he's never in doubt."

Friends — and he has legions — like to tell stories about Fred and his forthright manner. One of my favorites needs to be sanitized, even for adult audiences:

As marine superintendent, Mr. Cummings was in charge of the Great Lakes Fleet's day-to-day operations and had supervisory responsibilities for everything from purchasing to personnel, including negotiations with five maritime unions. Once, after a steamy exchange with a crewmember, the latter reported him to the union for allegedly abusive treatment. When confronted in a conference call with the international union president and his own company president for calling the crewmember a blankety-blank, Fred retorted: "For the record, I did not call that blankety-blank-blank a blankety-blank."

Despite his occasionally salty language and ostensible brusqueness, however, Fred Cummings is one of those guys who might have a crusty exterior but, as described by a longtime colleague, "has a heart of gold surrounded by a big marshmallow."

The maritime industry was a natural career path for Mr. Cummings, who grew up in nearby Iron River, Wis., the grandson of a Duluth-Superior tug captain and both son and nephew to Great Lakes sailors.

He climbed aboard his first laker, the William G. Clyde, in 1960 as a coal passer after three years in the Army and a tour of duty in France.

As the years sped by, Cummings sailed in various unlicensed capacities (deckhand, deckwatch, watchman, wheelsman) until the winter of 1967-68 when he enrolled in the Lake Carriers' Navigation School in Duluth. He became a third mate — including service aboard the original crew of the 1,000-foot Roger Blough in 1972. He eventually rose to relief chief mate before coming ashore as the fleet's port captain in 1980. After several promotions, he became marine superintendent in 1997.

The company, which last year observed its 100th anniversary, was the Pittsburgh Steamship Division of U.S. Steel Corp. when Cummings qualified for the seniority roster in 1961. After several name changes, it became, simply, the Great Lakes Fleet this past spring.

Now turning 63, Cummings says "it's been a good ride. You can't find better people anywhere than in Great Lakes shipping. That's what I'll miss most of all."

Be assured that the feeling will be mutual, says George Ryan, president of the Lake Carriers' Association, Cleveland.

"Fred Cummings has been honoring, respecting and ably representing the professional mariner for many years," Mr. Ryan said, "long before the Coast Guard's recent adoption of the term `Honor the Mariner.' Fred has done so in his own language, his own way."

Too preoccupied with the industry for too long to have developed many outside interests, he's not sure what's next. Some consulting, maybe. And rebuilding a 1976 Ford pickup truck with 200,000-plus miles.

"I'll try not to get in Karin's way," he said, "but I will spend more time with her and with my children [son John, daughters Anne Thomas and Kirsten Horvatt] and the [five] grandchildren."

Wouldn't surprise me, though, if we occasionally see him, and hear him, on the waterfront.