Company Profile
Company Overview
Our Vision for the 21st Century
Foss is “Always Ready”® to help our customers succeed, today and in the future
Our Mission
Foss Maritime is a marine transportation company providing an “Always Ready”®, quality-based, safe, reliable, and environmentally responsible service.
Our services are tailored to the specific, ever evolving needs of each of our customers, delivered at reasonable and competitive cost, in a friendly and ethical manner.
Our ability to anticipate future business, industry and customer needs and our strong commitment to be the first to respond, drives our future success.
Employees are our greatest strength. They hold customer service first as a responsibility and are supported with a work environment that emphasizes open communication, trust, respect, uniqueness and continuous learning.
We strive to be our best shareholders’ partner for investment and will consistently provide a competitive financial return.
Our Guiding Principles
Our principles that guide our decision and behavior and enable us to uniquely serve our customers are:
“Always Ready”® Service
Helping Our Customers Succeed
Looking To The Future
Employees Are Our Greatest Strength
Shareholders Are Our Partners
Company History
1889 was the year Andrew and Thea Foss purchased a used rowboat for little more than five dollars. Thea Foss, a Norwegian immigrant, and Andrew Foss, a carpenter, fixed up the newly acquired rowboat and sold it for a profit. The buying and selling trend continued until enough profit allowed them to keep a few boats to rent. Recreational rowing, a popular pastime in the Tacoma area during this era, drew many customers to the Foss' newly painted family float house advertising "Always Ready"®. A slogan that today is still part of Foss' commitment to exceptional service.
Taking advantage of every opportunity, Thea Foss pursued making decisions to increase the business. She purchased multiple powered launches and began delivering supplies and taxiing customers with the help of her sons, Arthur and Wedell. Using the carpentry skills of Andrew Foss and his mechanically minded brothers, Iver & Peter Foss, business continued to expand. By 1904, the now renamed Foss Launch Company, had acquired 10 launches. From this endeavor resulted in starting a shipyard, acquiring a 60 passenger, oil-powered vessel (Lillian D), and a small rescue craft for disabled vessels. Arthur Foss passed away in 1937, but his sons, brothers and nephews, Fred and Charles Berg, continued the business which eventually drifted into towboating. The fleet increasing its versatility with more powerful, gas-powered engines. World War I propelled the towing business to a new level, allowing Foss to purchase interests into a towboat company based in Seattle. Foss then became a firmly grounded entity in the Seattle market.
From the 1920's and forward, Foss' fleet continued to grow to the now driving force on the national and international maritime scene - Foss Maritime Company. Foss today operates the largest, most modern fleet of tugs on the West Coast and provides a full range of marine transportation services, including Harbor Services, Regional Towing, Environmental Services, Shipyard and Terminal Services. - paraphrased from "Foss A Living Legend"