Will Roberts is New COO; Foss Announces Six Other Executive Promotions

Will Roberts, formerly Foss chief commercial officer, has been appointed chief operating officer, leading a recent round of executive promotions that also placed a new vice president for sales and marketing and five new regional general managers.

The COO’s responsibilities are being expanded with Roberts’ appointment. In addition to managing the operating activities of the company, he will also retain some of his commercial responsibilities, particularly those promoting Project Services and the shipyard. Roberts is succeeding Scott Merritt, who is retiring.

Others promoted are: Jeff Horst, former commercial director to vice president, sales and marketing; Mike O’Connor, former labor director, to general manager, Pacific Northwest; Art Dahlin, former project manager, to general manager, Columbia- Snake River; Henry Palmer, former port captain, Marine Transportation, to general manager, San Francisco; Paul Hendriks, former Pacific Northwest operations director to general manager, Southern California; and Marjorie Zoretic to general manager, Atlantic.

Will Roberts

• Roberts joined Foss as CCO in 2017. Before joining Foss, he was senior vice president, customer services Americas, for global marine systems and services provider Rolls- Royce. Prior to that, he held a number of other executive positions at Rolls- Royce, both in the United States and abroad. He is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy with a degree in ocean engineering, holds a masters in engineering management from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Va., and most recently completed a course of study at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Jeff Horst

• Horst joined Foss in 2008 after a 21-year carrier in logistics and freight forwarding, reaching the position of vice-president of sales for two of the top global logistics firms. He is the son of a trucking company owner from Detroit and a graduate of Western Michigan University.

Mike O’Connor

• O’Connor joined Foss in 1999 as a Line Service superintendent after graduating from the University of Washington. He took time out to earn an MBA at Washington State University before becoming Line Service manager and was promoted to labor director in 2009.

Henry Palmer

• Palmer is a 2008 graduate of California Maritime Academy with a bachelor of science degree in marine transportation. He worked as a deck officer on tankers, as a tankerman and as a cargo superintendent before joining Foss in 2014 as assistant port captain, marine transportation and later becoming port captain.

Art Dahlin

• Dahlin is a 2007 graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy where he received a bachelor of science degree in logistics and intermodal transportation. After working in the towing industry on inland waters and the Gulf of Mexico, he joined Foss parent company Saltchuk in 2013 as a senior financial analyst and came to Foss as a project manager in 2015.

Paul Hendriks

• Hendriks is a 1987 graduate of the University of California at Irvine and worked on pilot boats and tugs for a number of companies before joining Foss in Long Beach as a management captain in 1998. Among other jobs at Foss, he was port captain for both El Segundo and Southern California. Hendriks was Columbia-Snake River operations manager before taking the PNW job.

Marjorie Zoretic

• Zoretic is a 2008 graduate of the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy and worked on LNG regasification vessels, as a tankerrman for Chevron, and as second mate for Noble Drilling in support of Shell’s offshore drilling in Alaska. She joined Foss in 2017 as operations manager for the construction of the Foss LNG bunker barge that will fuel TOTE ships in Jacksonville.