National Maritime Historical Society Charting New Course Under Cathy Green

By Ira Breskin –

Expect the National Maritime Historical Society to increasingly collaborate with sister maritime heritage organizations.

That likely will be one of primary missions of NMHS, said Cathy Green, the organization’s new executive director. She assumed the post on March 1.

NMHS, by year-end, will determine the specific “role it can play in the larger marine world” to promote maritime history, emphasizing its enduring relevance, Green said during an interview last week. Organizational goals will be detailed in the organization’s ‘strategic review’, expected to be completed in December, Green added.

Fifty-one-year-old NMHS, based in Peekskill, NY, highlights and promotes the maritime industry’s seminal contributions to the nation’s shared heritage by hosting well-received events and publishing Sea History magazine.

Further NMHS collaboration is a logical goal given Green’s professional DNA. For decades she has worked in a variety of roles for, and with, many of that nation’s leading maritime history-based organizations.

Green most recently served as the executive director of the Wisconsin (State) Maritime Museum, in Manitowoc on Lake Michigan. There she initiated a program for the museum to accept and curate hobbyists’ marine artifacts.

Prior to that, she worked as program director for Council of American Maritime Museums and was the education coordinator for NOAA’s Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary in Alpena, MI. Earlier, she worked as an underwater archaeologist for the Wisconsin Historical Society.

Green has strong academic credentials. She received a BA in history from Indiana University and a master’s in Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University.

She is a native of New Albany, IN, hard by the historic Ohio River.

Ira Breskin is a senior lecturer at State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx, NY and author of The Business of Shipping (9th edition, 2018), a primer that explains shipping economics, operations and regulations. 

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