MM-SEAS Newsroom

Ah, the Captain's License, that elusive golden ticket to the open sea. 360 sea days might seem like a tall order, but you'd be surprised. Nate Gilman, that intrepid Co-Founder and President of MM-SEAS, he tells me that many an avid boater already has those days in their logbook, accumulated over the last handful of years. The challenge, it seems, wasn't the days at sea, but the tedious paperwork – those damned Coast Guard forms. That's where MM-SEAS comes in with a free tool to craft the perfect form, ready to be digitally signed and stored safely online. No more losing your paperwork in a stiff sea breeze.

Mariners who had their U.S. Coast Guard merchant mariner credential expire between Nov. 1, 2020, and June 30, 2021 are eligible to renew their MMC until Oct. 31, 2022. “The reinstatement process is a major expense and personal time commitment that mariners shouldn’t have to go through,” said Nate Gilman, co-founder and president of MM-SEAS software. “We completely get how frustrating the entire USCG licensing process can be, and want to make sure mariners know that they have one month left to make their MMC renewal a lot easier and cheaper for themselves.”

On the Women Offshore podcast, hear from Lindsay Hennes. She is one of the co-founders of MM-SEAS. She got her start in the maritime industry sailing tall ships and studying seabirds, but more recently worked as captain of a ferry in San Francisco bay. While she was a ferry captain by day, by night she was studying data science for her Masters. These days Lindsay is having a blast talking to mariners, designing widgets, and writing code with the MM-SEAS crew to build software that helps the maritime community.

With the pandemic-related extensions for mariners’ licenses ending October 31, a new maritime company has published a guide geared toward helping mariners simplify license renewal. MM-SEAS, an online credential assistance software company based in Arlington, Va., has published the guide “Renew Your USCG License In 10 Easy Steps” on its website.

The goal is to help prevent an application backlog as already an estimated 50 percent of merchant mariner credential applications are rejected due to incomplete information, causing weeks or sometimes even months of delays.

The National Maritime Center’s (NMC) Covid extensions for Merchant Mariner Credentials (MMC) are ending on Oct. 31. To help mariners during this backlog, MM-SEAS just published the free guide “Renew Your USCG License in 10 Easy Steps.”

“Right now, we’re hearing that there’s a potential backlog of USCG applications at the NMC. And, this application process can stretch even longer when mariners have trouble navigating the USCG bureaucracy,” Nate Gilman, president of the online USCG license credentialing software MM-SEAS, said in a prepared statement. “We’re finding that when applications are submitted perfectly, in the right order with the right information and everything signed, the process can go from months to weeks.”

MM-SEAS co-founder and president Nate Gilman said mentoring and training young people like Angel-Ramos is key to growing a healthy blue economy for Washington State. “I care deeply about workforce development and fostering the health of the industry,” Gilman said. “Programs like Washington Maritime Blue and the Youth Maritime Collective create a much-needed pipeline. They’re introducing the next generation to good paying jobs and also doing the work to help build an equitable and diverse maritime workforce. We need to be able to open the door to students like Juana who are smart and innovative but might not have maritime in mind for a career.”

For Des Moines-native Juana Angel-Ramos spending her summer vacation between high school and college interning with a maritime technology startup was something she never imagined doing

Maritime Blue, a statewide organization of maritime stakeholders, the state Department of Commerce, and the Port of Seattle, launched its second group of Maritime Innovation Accelerator start-up companies. The goal of the program is to spur new technology and investment in one of Washington’s most enduring and important industry sectors - maritime accounts for over $37 billion in economic impact annually, including 69,500 jobs.

MM-SEAS is the reportedly the first software that automates the manual task of obtaining, tracking and renewing U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) credentials, helping to eliminate paperwork processing errors while delivering merchant mariner career guidance.

A brand-new company has given itself one unique mission: to make mariners’ lives easier by helping them to organize the paperwork and supporting documents underpinning their credentials, ratings and licenses.

Obtaining the USCG Credentials to work in the Maritime Industry can be frustrating. MM-SEAS ( https://www.mmseas.com/ ) was developed by one of the companies we have been working with in our OpenSeas Dojo for startups and scale ups. They have a unique mission: to make mariner’s lives easier and better by helping them to organize the paperwork and supporting documents underpinning their credentials, ratings and licenses.

MM-SEAS™ ( https://www.mmseas.com ) is the first software that automates the manual task of obtaining, tracking and renewing U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) credentials. MM-SEAS™ eliminates paperwork processing errors and delivers meaningful merchant mariner career guidance.