Autobiography

Besides, I was studying languages on my own as strongly belivied it is a key for world’s understanding. On an effort to unify and provide the family with a better future, my mother and me decided to continue the family tradition and let me be a seaman, with prespective to become a captain and financially idependent.

My mother and father were divorced and she had hard times working on board the ship to feed our family. My grandfather passed away when I was young and not a long while after my father did. Man becomes a man when he takes liability after his own life, same did I. I studied harder and harder as our family could not afford the education for me by that time and the only solution was to win a scholarship. University exams passed and that happened – I won a presidential scholarship from Ukraine government which covered the whole educational process! That news made me beyond proud of myself.

Throughout university I completed more than 200 hours of science work, primarily regarding the safe maneuvering of the ship. Besides, I was wondering how to improve the major topics of marine industry such as gender-neutral hiring to brake all the stereotypes that ship industry is designed for men only (that’s what proved my mom from her hard job over 25 years on board) and achieve more efficiency using less polution from CO2 emissions,etc. I have encountered numerous challenges and I triumphed over all of them. My ambition to succeed, respectfulness, and leadership will never waiver.

When I first step on board the ship as a deck cadet the reality from what we were taught was different. I looked around and start thinking, what am I going to do in here? I cannot do it. Anyway, I decided to stay and prove my family that I can handle all the dificuilties and let my grandfather to be proud of me on the heaven.

Difficult as it was, I assimilated into my new environment quickly. I worked my way to navigational officer as quickly as I can. I have maintained and managed bridge equipment and software as it was interesting and kind of familiar to me. Ship captain noticed it and took my education under his control. We were studying hard, doing our job and sail all over the world, including multiple visits of the ports of United States. Since that contract all my appraisals were with promotions and I was moving on my career quicker than anyone in my university. I became navigational officer in the age of 20 years old, immediately upon achieving the Bachelor’s degree with honors.

Life has not been easy. While my friends were enjoying high school and college, I had to work to help support my family, and to contribute to the goal of family reunification. I decided to move forward and achieved Master’s degree with honors in prespective to continue my way to PhD. During all the years passed I was studying for the next rank and grew up in a quick way in my company. During vacations I passed additional courses to be more valuable for my company and accompanied it with a lot of aspects on shore, like accidents investigations, reviews of ships efficiency and sharing the good practices. Unfortunatelly, my life changed in the Feb 2022 when Russia encountered the Ukraine border. War made my dreams to achieve a PhD in marine sphere practically impossible as university became under Ukrainian military control,so I made the biggest decision in my life – move to the United States and start my seaman life over here.

Upon arrival, I immediately started to search mor marine occupation. I applied to various shipping companies and even U.S. Navy to serve in the army. The issue is I stuck on the first step – changing International based marine documents to U.S. based marine due to security reasons. On board a ship I studied and extremely useful skill – adaptability. I used to take a digital camera on board to take some landscape pictures – that’s how I found my first job in the United States – photographer. I started learning the culture, the way to speak with others, answer their questions, and finally became a part of Jewish society who my grand grand parents used to be in Ukraine. My life was started getting smothers, but now I realize how I miss marine industry business. Ever since I came to this country I had to work and study as hard as if my life depended on it, and in a way it did. I still working on the articles and study all the aspects of U.S. ports. I feel really excited to implement my ideas and plans for setting a good minimum wage for port employees, provide competence and trainings, cooperate with local schools and universities, internships and port visits. Besides, my scope is achieve economic growth through innovation and technological modernisation and implement innovative IT and digital technologies in the port for public use (AI technology for making the life more simple between ship-shore connections).

Immigration to a new country is always a difficult decision, and whoever experienced it understands what kind of sacrifices people go through.  That desire to finally belong to my new culture made me go outside of my comfort zone. Although, I have encountered many difficulties in my path, I have always believed that perseverance and hard work are the keys to success. I want to achieve my goal to work in the marine field, and along the way I have fallen in love with the photography and neuroengine. I have always been very active and dedicated to help people. This career will fulfill my dreams. However, we all arrived here for the same reason – to find a better future. Coming to United States and leaving everything behind, learning a new culture and working long hours were the factors that determined who I am today. All those life experiences helped me have a clear idea of how difficult it is to start a new life in the unfamiliar country, I became more resilient to hardship. I am a foreigner, but I feel at home here and strongly believe that United States is the place where I can national interests at the port or marine structure to the next level.