How many female fireboat engineers are there in the world?
To my knowledge, there is one other – a woman on the West Coast. How did you wind up working on the water? It was blissful accident. I was working crazy days as a dot com-er in the Empire State Building, living this very virtual life. I went to the fireboat for a volunteer day, and ended up cutting out unused heating pipe with a power saw. It was the realest thing that I’d done in ages; I was hooked. [She eventually joined the crew of the John J. Harvey and became a Coast Guard-licensed merchant marine officer.] Prior to volunteering, what was your nautical experience? I went whale-watching as a child and had fantasies of being a marine biologist. But I wound up majoring in psychology. Why is it important to save old boats? You’re preserving a piece of American history. The kids visiting the John J. Harvey get a taste of the technology that was essential to the creation of New York, of Hudson River industry, and by extension, of our country. They get to feel the rumbling of the engines
