A FEW WORDS ABOUT
“AMSA”, THE MARINE SURVEYORS ASSOCIATION
American Marine Surveyors
Association, Inc. (AMSA) was a Delaware corporation. This was a small organization for certifying and
assisting marine surveyors who wanted an organization with more personal
contact and help between the association and its membership. This worked well for several years until the
founder and president became hospitalized a couple years ago (and still is
unfortunately and may be for a long time) and the organization lacked the
hands-on leadership to keep it going and servicing its membership and enrolling
new members. Some of us still keep in
touch and try to be of help to each other in solving sticky marine survey
questions and problems. Some of the old
AMSA members have gone on to other accredited marine surveyor associations and
some may have chosen not to.
Since AMSA is no longer active, you will
not find it on the web, but that doesn’t mean the certification issued to those
who passed the test is now invalid. It’s
just as good as the day it was issued.
The same as certifications issued by the other accredited marine
surveyor organizations if they should fail.
Of course, none of these organizations is a legal regulatory body and
membership in any of them is purely optional, not a requirement. However, some insurance companies and banks
have been convinced that all surveyors must be a member in either one of the
two largest organizations and no other, or they are not qualified. This is false and was done to increase their
membership rolls and revenue as much as to make sure all marine surveyors were
properly qualified. The first part of
this is despicable conduct and can cause the client to have doubts about an otherwise
highly experienced and qualified surveyor that choose not to join, or to drop
their membership. This problem is generally
overcome by the surveyor submitting a good résumé to the insurance company or bank, but it delays the process. The latter part is commendable since
inexperienced newcomers to the marine surveying business should get certified
after initial training (either schooling or apprenticeship) in vessel surveying.
When I took my certification test and
joined AMSA many years ago I had already been surveying for over a quarter
century (pre-dating most of the existing organizations), which made the test
easy for me to pass. However as stated
above, we still recommend that anyone just entering into marine surveying, and
with so much to learn about it, should get training and be certified by and
join one of the organizations, at least until they have several years of
surveying experience and become well known in this field. Make sure you choose the organization that
gives you plenty of support when you need it, not just collect your annual dues
and ignore you, or be hard to reach easily when you have urgent questions.
Hope this helps clear up any questions
about AMSA and accrediting marine surveyor organizations in general.
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