Tom Boardley
London, 18 July-Tom Boardley, Lloyd’s Register’s Marine Director, is the new Chairman of the International Association of Classification Societies (IACS). His chairmanship commenced on July 1. Today he spoke to the press in London. Mr. Boardley presented and discussed his ambitions for his year as Chairman. He described the important role IACS plays in shipping particularly emphasising the technical leadership that IACS’ members provide to the shipping industry.
With a number of significant challenges for IACS in the year ahead a key feature of his chairmanship will be effective engagement with marine industry stakeholder, notably IMO, the EU, EMSA, OCIMF and shipowner associations. Meetings with some of these organisations have already been held and the response to Mr. Boardley’s advocacy of greater engagement and co-operation by IACS with such bodies has been extremely positive.
With the EU’s investigation into class well in the past, IACS is now better able to concentrate on the big issues faced by class and the marine industry. IACS is a fully transparent organisation and, although there have been no recent membership applications, the organisation is open to any potential members that meet the association’s quality criteria.
Anticipating the year ahead, Boardley sees three big challenges: the continued work in harmonised common structural rules (CSR-H); the introduction of emission control areas; and the implications of the long anticipated ratification of the ballast water convention.
Working closely with Tom Boardley will be Lloyd’s Register’s Head of External Affairs, Kosta Petrov. Mr. Petrov assumes the role of Chairman of IACS’ key forum, the General Policy Group (GPG) and will, effectively, run the office of the chairman – ‘the engine room of the organisation’ – during the chairman’s year in office. Mr. Boardley emphasised the importance of the support he would receive from Mr. Petrov and his team as well as all the members who give considerable time to the work of IACS. ‘The permanent secretariat of IACS is vital’, he commented, ‘but IACS day to day work would also be impossible without the constant work and input from members’ technical staff and technical regulatory experts. This amounts to a huge number of man hours annually.’
Mr. Boardley clearly believes that IACS is an important organisation with a key role to play in supporting shipowners, shipbuilders and regulators by addressing the technical challenges faced in shipping. ‘Within class we have unmatched technical expertise and we want to make the most of our strengths.’
