Jonathan Whitworth

Jonathan-Whitworth_5.jpg
Says the 43-year-old Whitworth: “I’m the luckiest guy in Vancouver.”

The CEO of Washington Marine Group in his 
element on the waterfront, and he’s 
determined to take his company to new heights.

While most CEOs covet a corner office atop a downtown highrise, Jonathan Whitworth couldn’t be happier reporting to the low-slung head office of Washington Marine Group on North Vancouver’s gritty industrial waterfront.


“I’m the luckiest guy in Vancouver,” he says, gesturing toward the flotilla of tugs, barges, tankers and ferries outside his second-floor office. “I love being around a company that has a passion that’s aligned with mine, which is the sea and ships.”

The 43-year-old Whitworth comes by his love of all things maritime honestly. He got his first taste of the sea at age 11 when his father, a ship’s captain, sent him to sea aboard a freighter. “He had a correct theory,” Whitworth recalls, summing up his father’s thinking: “‘This’ll either scare the heck out of him, or he’ll get the bug.’”


Needless to say, Whitworth got the bug. After that fateful trip at age 11, he went on to attend the Texas Maritime Academy at Texas A&M University in Galveston and worked his way up to captain in the merchant marine. (The family had settled in Texas when Whitworth was nine, after stints in England and Montreal.)


As in many a sea yarn, it was a woman who brought him back to shore for good. Whitworth was dating a young student by the name of Julie at the University of North Texas, outside of Dallas, and was bored when she went off to class while he whiled away his eight months a year of shore leave. So he decided to join her and register for a few classes.


“Once I got into school, I found the second of three passions I have, and that is the business of shipping,” he says – his first two being shipping and the sea.


After completing an MBA, Whitworth rose quickly in the business of shipping. He headed business development for a shipping subsidiary of Exxon Mobil Corp. in Houston, and served as managing director of Teekay Shipping (USA) Inc., also in Houston, before decamping to Tampa, Florida, in 2004, where he became CEO of Maritrans Inc., a publicly traded tug, barge and tanker operator. He remained with Maritrans in Tampa until moving to Vancouver with Julie, now his wife, and their two kids in August 2009 to accept his current position.


Today Whitworth oversees a sprawling operation that not only blankets Vancouver waterways with its tugs and barges but is engrained in the everyday life of B.C. residents up and down the coast. With 1,500 employees, three shipyards, a fleet of 160 barges and 54 tugs, and annual revenue approaching $500 million, Washington Marine Group is a significant force in the B.C. economy.


But for Whitworth, this is just the starting point. As he describes it, he signed on with a specific mandate to grow the company, and he’s determined that Washington Marine attain the public recognition it deserves as one of the industrial giants of the province. “We’re not happy being what we are today,” he says. By “we,” he means the company board, and in particular majority owner and Montana industrial magnate Dennis Washington and his son, Kyle Washington, who chairs the board of Seaspan International Ltd., the group’s marine operations division. “The Washington family and myself are both quite consistent on this: that this is a great company with a great story and it can be replicated. So we’re interested in growing our business,” Whitworth says.


While Whitworth describes a five-year plan to expand both organically and through acquisitions, he is spending a lot of his time these days shuttling to Ottawa pursuing a one-time contract that would instantly double the company’s shipbuilding side. Washington Marine is among three companies shortlisted to land one of two federal government contracts to build replacement ships for the Canadian navy and coast guard, contracts worth a total of $35 billion (the other two companies are in Quebec and Nova Scotia).


With or without the federal contract, Whitworth is committed to ushering Washington Marine into a new era of growth, secure in the knowledge that he has both the commitment and the deep pockets of the Washington family behind him. 


“I would refer to Washington Marine Group as the sleeping giant,” he says, “and now I’m just lucky to be part of this team and lucky to be waking that giant up.”