Captain Howard b. Wyche

Captain Howard b. Wyche, a founding member and treasurer of OBMG (Organization of Black Maritime Graduates) graduated from SUNY Maritime College in 1979. After his graduation he worked as a 3rd Mate for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on self-propelled hopper dredges, designed to excavate material off the seafloor and collect it.

In 1980, he was the first African American to be accepted as an apprentice to the Pilot’s Association for the Bay and River Delaware. To be the first during the 1900s is a remarkable achievement, back then the maritime industry was white male dominated and he became the first African American to be accepted as an apprentice for a pilot’s association. a pilot boards and temporarily joins the crew to safely guide the ship's passage, so they must also have expertise in handling ships of all types and sizes, on top of that they need to know the waters extremely well with details such as depth, currents, and hazards, the river being 405 miles long will take a while to master the waters and be comfortable charting them. Pilots' Association for the Bay and River Delaware is one of the oldest state pilot organizations in the nation and a recognized world leader in the technology, training, and accountability of piloting.

Life for apprentices is made up of watches-six hours on and six hours off. For those with less than two years service, two weeks on and one week off is the rule. On December 2, 1896, the Association passed a rule that all apprentices would be paid $5 per month, or about $187.86 today, a normal river pilot made about $2-3 per day which is significantly more than an apprentice. Now they earn around 12 thousand dollars per month on average, based on a typical annual salary of hundreds of thousands of dollars for a riverboat pilot. While serving as an apprentice pilot, Howard worked as a tugboat Captain.

In 1984, Captain Wyche became one of the first African American Marine Pilots in the US. After many years of working on the water he became a founding member and treasurer of OBMG, a company  that assists and encourages by educating and increasing public awareness regarding minority involvement in the maritime and engineering industries through recruitment, mentoring, scholarships, and networking. Now in all maritime professions there is diversity with gender and race, thanks to the help and commitment of captain Howard b. Wyche.

By Maxymilian Zygmanski