Category: Awards

ISSC Bursary Awards 2025

On behalf of the International Sailors’ Society of Canada, we are pleased to announce the succesfull recipients of their 2025 Sue Hanby Maritime Education Bursaries.

William Lea-Smith and Sebastian Slack.

William is a Nautical Sciences cadet currently in his first sea phase and will be going into his second year at BCIT Marine Campus for the Nautical Sciences Cadet Program come November, He is very passionate about the career path that he has chosen and will be attending this program until he graduates in 2027. His current plan is to return to school for an additional year to advance his education and turn his Advanced Diploma into a Degree.

Sebastian is also attending BCIT Marine Campus and is enrolled in the Marine Engineering Diploma program. Having worked as an Engine Room Apprentice with BC Ferries for several years Sebastian has made the difficult decision to leave his watch and regular paying position to pursue path that would allow him to progress his career quicker and in a structured classroom setting within the BCIT Marine Engineering Cadet program.

His immediate goal is to graduate the program with a fourth-class motor ticket and eventually work at sea as an exemplary fourth engineer set on the right path to Chief Engineer.

We wish William and Sebastian all the very best in their efforts to achieve these worthy goals and are pleased to have been able to provide some financial assistance to them.

We encourage all students enrolled in marine related studies to keep checking the ISSC web site for news regarding our bursary awards for 2026.

VTF Bursaries for 2025

NPESC is pleased to announce that, on behalf of the Vancouver Transportation Foundation (VTF), the following BCIT Marine Campus Students were awarded educational bursaries for 2025

  • Tyus Barfoot
  • Bhupinder Dhesi
  • Marisa Price
  • Kayley McEachern
  • Shifani Hans
  • Seth Cutter Stovicek
  • Dhruva Maru
  • William Lea-Smith
  • Joseph Wang
  • Dillon Plouffe
  • Jihwan Seong

Congratulations to all recipients. We wish you all the best in your future endeavours.

Fall Bursary and Book Award made at WMI

Capt. John Lewis was pleased to attend at Western Maritime Institute (WMI) in Ladysmith, BC earlier this week to present Dale Gisborne with his 2023 Fall Bursary award and Daniel Clark with his Book Award.

Capt. John Lewis presents Dale Gisborne with his 2023 Fall Bursary award
Capt. John Lewis presents Daniel Clark with his book award

Awards made at BCIT Marine Campus

The NPESC was pleased to present two awards to BCIT Marine Campus cadets on Friday April 28th.

Captains Joachim Ruether and Stan Bowles were on hand to present the 2022 BCIT First Year Achievement Award to Kara Perehudoff and the 2022 book award to Tyus Barfoot.

Captain Bowles took this opportunity to give a brief history of the NPESC to all students and Captain Ruether reminded students that NPESC is currently accepting applications for our 2023 spring bursary. Applications must be received by midnight on April to be eligible for consideration.

Full details regarding the 2023 spring bursary can be found by clicking here.

Captains Ruether (left) and Bowles (right) present Kara with her certificate
Captains Ruether (left) and Bowles (right) present Tyus with his book award

Bursary winner returns from sea and accepts award.

2nd year BCIT Engineering Cadet Karn Chema has just returned from sea time with Algoma and was able to collect his certificate for being one of our successful Fall bursary recipients. Presenting the award to Karn is NPESC secretary/treasurer Captain Joachim Ruether. The presentation was made at the Sailors’ Point memorial adjacent to the BCIT Marine Campus in North Vancouver.

Engineering Cadet Karn Chema accepts his award from Capt. Ruether

Fall 2020 Bursary Award

Capt. Joachim Ruether presented one of our Fall bursary awards to BCIT Marine Campus Nautical Sciences Cadet Ashley Obeck. This particular award is made possible through funds derived from our Vancouver Foundation Fund and those supplied by Capt. Harry Allen of the Vancouver Division of the Company of Master Mariners of Canada. Our congratulations go out to Ashley and we wish her the very best in her future efforts and endeavours.

Captain Joachim Ruether presents BCIT Maritime Campus cadet Ashley Obeck with her 2020 Fall Bursary Award

Bursary Certificates Presented at BCIT

At noon today we were thrilled to present 5 successful applicants for our bursary awards with their certificates for 2019.

Capt. Joachim Ruether addresses the audience

Certificates were presented to Nautical Science students Noah Hendricks, Robert Jamieson, Justin Lamarche and Zachary Mauriks as well as Marine Engineering student Ahmed Beltmer.

Cadet Justin Lamarche receives his certificate from Capt. Harry Allen

It was a great pleasure to have one of our major benefactors, Captain Harry Allen, in attendance to make the presentation to Cadet Justin Lamarche. The bursary awarded to Justin was made possible by a generous donation made by Captain Allen.

Zachary Mauriks receives his certificate from NPESC Chair Capt. Richard Smith

Ahmed Beltmer receives his award from Captains Brian Johnston and Joachim Ruether of NPESC

Noah Hendricks received his certificate from Captain Smith

Captains Smith and Ruether bump elbows with Robert Jamieson as he accepts his certificate

Also in attendance at this presentation ceremony was Captain Barbara Howe who, in her capacity as a member of the Vancouver division of Master Mariners of Canada, presented a certificate to Cadet Dylan Shaver as the successful recipient of their Baugh Fund Scholarship. During her presentation, Captain Howe reminisced about receiving this self same award early on in her career and the ways in which it helped her.

Captain Barbara Howe presents the certificate for the Baugh Fund scholarship to Cadet Dylan Shaver

As the chair of the International Sailors’ Society of Canada (ISSC) Bursary Committee, Captain Smith also took the opportunity to present their 2019 Maritime Bursary Award certificate to Ahmed Beltmer.

Capt. Richard Smith presents the 2019 ISSC Maritime Bursary Award certificate to Cadet Ahmed Beltmer who is enrolled in the Marine Engineering program at BCIT

Captain David Whittaker was in attendance and also wearing two hats. Both as a founding member of the NPESC and single handedly responsible for publication of the NPESC publication “SEATIMES” as well as a member of the BC Branch of the Nautical Institute. It was in this capacity that he presented the 2019 NIBC/VTF (Nautical Institute BC Branch/Vancouver Transportation Foundation) bursary award certificate to Cadet Robert Jamieson.

Capt. David Whittaker presents the 2019 NIBC/VTF bursary certificate to Cadet Robert Jamieson

Book award at Camosun

We were very pleased to make a book award to Ms. Robin Haynes at Camosun College earlier this week. Robin is a student in the 150 Ton Master program and aspired to work in the coastal tourism industry as a skipper of a natural history cruise vessel. The book awarded to Robin was “Golden Stripes” in which Captain V.S. Parani combines the credibility of his seafaring experience with his talent as a master storyteller to reveal the leadership challenges at sea and his strategies for staying on course.

Captain Joachim Ruether presents Robin with her award

BCIT Convocation Book Awards

Once again we were pleased to attend at the BCIT Marine Campus Convocation ceremonies for their cadet program and make book presentations to cadets who had made outstanding efforts and achieved good grades.

img_3489-1In the above photograph, Captain Achim Ruether presents Engineering Cadet Peter Didak with his book award.

img_3488-1

In the above photograph Captain Stan Bowles presents Deck Cadet Stephen Wyatt with his book award.