In early 1987, Harley Marine's Founder and current Chairman, Harley Franco, recognized the need for customer oriented marine transportation company in Puget sound. Mr. Franco started his business with one leased tug and barge under the name Olympic Tug & Barge, Inc. and slowly built the company by instituting, and, in some cases, pioneering quality operating, procedures and safety and environmental protection standards.
In 1992, Olympic Tug expanded its fleet to four tugs and three barges operating inside Puget Sound. At that time, it decided to obtain the most modern fleet possible by utilizing barges built after 1980. In 1994, Olympic Tug expanded again, this time to providing bunkering and lube oil services in the Columbia and Willamette Rivers outside of Portland, Oregon.
After acquiring a deck barge in 1995, Olympic Tug further expanded into dry bulk transportation and deck barge services. Also in 1995, the business received two awards: "Excellence in Customer Service" from Texaco and the Seattle Mayor's "Small Business of the Year" award.
In 1997, Olympic Tug entered into a major petroleum transportation contract with British Petroleum, which made it the largest supplier of petroleum transportation services in the Pacific Northwest. Later t hat year, Olympic Tug entered into a joint venture, Westoil Marine Transport (Bermuda) Ltd., with Chauvco, a large Canadian oil company, to operate three tankers in the West Africa. This joint venture was sold at a substantial profit in 1998.
In mid-1998, Harley Marine Services was formed as a holding company for acquisitions in the marine services field that the company desired to add to its ever-growing lists of services. Since then, the numbers of vessels and homeports have continued to grow. In early 1998, the Company acquired Pacific Coast Maritime,
a marine services company founded in 1982 that provided tug and barge services
in Alaska, Washington, and California. Also in mid-1998, Harley Marine Services purchased the assets of Links Marine,the marine transportation division of Chemoil Corporation,with three barges, two tugs
and an oil spill response vessel.
This company was renamed Westoil Marine Services, Inc. and primarily provides the transportation of marine fuels in
Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbor.
In May 2000, Harley Marine began providing ship assist
and escort services in Los Angeles and Long Beach Harbors with four
state-of-the-art tractor tugs under the name Millennium Maritime, Inc.
In July 2000, Harley Marine purchased Public Service Marine, Inc. founded in 1978 to build and operate the barge Jovalan, which transported petroleum products for public utilities in Southern California.
In 1981, Public Service Marine developed a completely self-contained on-board vapor recovery system to scrub, compress, and condense hydrocarbon vapors created during petroleum cargo loadings. This patented system, which exceeds
all air pollution regulations involved with petroleum cargo loading, has been used successfully in Santa Barbara County, San Francisco Bay, 
and otherareas in California. Public Service Marine has successfully operated
the Jovalan with its patented vapor recovery system for over 19 years, serving customers in both Northern and Southern California. This barge is the only
mobile marine vapor recovery system certified for use by any air quality management district.
In the fall of 1999 Pacific Northern Oil sold it's assests to Chevron's Fuel and
Marine Marketing (FAMM). Pacific Terminal Services, Inc. was formed
to operate
the PNO terminals for FAMM. The Pier 91 terminal in Seattle
was operated
for several years prior to relocating to Point Wells. In June 2004
FAMM
ceased operations in Washington State and PTSI consolidated
to
the Portland, Oregon terminal. Today, PTSI continues to operate the terminal
in Portland
for FAMM as we search for additonal uses for the terminal.
Harley Marine entered the San Francisco Bay area market in April of 2003 under the name Starlight Marine Services, providing petroleum transportation and ship assist services. And in late 2006, Harley Marine established themselves in their first east coast company, Harley Marine NY, Inc. Being the newest of the Harley Marine Services family, Harley Marine NY uses some of the latest model vessels, including three double hull barges and two tugs. |