Trade mission to Brazil
Jose Aparecido de Oliveira (left), commercial director of Companhia Vale do Rio Doce, greeted Adolph Ojard, Duluth port director, while representatives of the Great Lakes were on a trade mission to Brazil.
Grain procurement tour
Participants in a class on grain procurement processing for importers toured the Port in September. The students were taking a course offered by the Northern Crops Institute, based in Fargo, N.D. This course provides a thorough understanding of U.S. grain marketing system. The course includes case studies, trading exercises, discussions with grain traders at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange and on-site visits to a country elevator, local farm, export grain terminal and the Twin Ports, where the NCI classes are always welcome.

Military logistics
Students in a Master of Military Logistics at North Dakota State University toured the Port in July. The degree program is targeted specifically at career military officers, Department of Defense civilians and other logistic professionals. The program is sponsored and coordinated by the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute.
On the dot
District maintenance engineers from the Minnesota Department of Transportation gathered for a picture while on a tour of the Port in September.
That’s a stretch
While touring the Port, a group from the Great Lakes Transportation Summer Institute took the measure of a wind turbine propeller blade. Obviously, it’s 18 people — or 40 meters — long. The blade was made in North Dakota by LM Glasfiber for one of that company’s international customers.

New tug in town

The Forney is a new arrival. She’ll be made ready over the winter for duty in the Twin Ports. The tug was retired in Detroit in 2003 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The tug is owned by three Ojards of Knife River, Minn. — father Mike and sons Pat and Vince. (Mike is a cousin of Duluth Port Director Adolph Ojard.)

The tug’s owners will bid on barge and ship-assist assignments once they’re ready to put the Forney back to work.

Another once-retired Corps tug, the 115-foot Lake Superior, also has been acquired by private owners and put back in service. As a museum vessel, she doubled as an ice cream shop.