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 went into a long period of hospitalization then passed away in Nov. 2010. As a result, 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Since AMSA is no longer active, you will not find it on the web, but that doesn’t mean the certification issued to those or us who passed the test is now invalid.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 improper 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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