The Marine & Oceanographic Technology Network, or MOTN, has created an annual award named for North Falmouth resident Steven G. Withrow that recognizes an individual’s leadership in the advancement of the marine and oceanographic technology industry.

Formed in 1994, MOTN is a nonprofit corporation dedicated to promoting, supporting and expanding marine technology manufacturing and service businesses throughout New England.

Mr. Withrow received the first award last Tuesday, February 22, during the opening reception of the Blue Innovation Symposium at the Wyndham Newport Hotel in Middletown, Rhode Island.

“Steve not only was MOTN’s executive director, but he has decades of experience working in the marine technology industry and he continues to volunteer his time as a mentor to aspiring professionals in the field,” MOTN wrote in a press release.

In addition to the award, Mr. Withrow received a certificate of recognition from Rhode Island Governor Daniel J. McKee.

He is the father of Steven G. Withrow Jr., managing editor of the Bourne and Mashpee Enterprise newspapers.

A few years after leaving the US Air Force, Mr. Withrow, a Waltham native, started his marine and ocean technology career in 1979 as a marketing manager for Hazeltine in Braintree, where he focused on selling anti-submarine warfare systems to the US Navy.

He later became director of business development for General Instrument Corporation in Westwood.

My focus was on selling seafloor mapping systems, and sonar was my sweet spot, he told the Enterprise. “During my time at General Instrument, the company introduced a new technology called a multibeam bathymetric mapping system for the US Navy.

In the 1980s, this technology evolved into the world’s first commercially available multibeam mapping system, the SeaBeam.

Later, working as vice president for a new company, SeaBeam Instruments in Walpole, Mr. Withrow not only sold the SeaBeam systems but also introduced the digital mapping technology to ocean scientists internationally who were able to process the complex data the system provided.

I helped pioneer the use of multibeam bathymetric mapping systems around the world. I was not so much selling as teaching, and I began to visit a lot of academics and research scientists at the University of Rhode Island, the Scripps Research Institute and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, he said.

SeaBeam’s customer base soon expanded internationally, and Mr. Withrow said he traveled the globe throughout the 1980s and 1990s to work with engineers, scientists, funding agents, and shipyard personnel in Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, India, and Australia, among other countries.

I’ve never been to South America, Africa, or Russia, but I’ve traveled just about everywhere else in the world,” he said. “Within a five-year period, I filled two passport books with country stamps.

When L3 Communications purchased SeaBeam Instruments in 1997, Mr. Withrow decided to start his own marketing and business development company for the ocean technology industry, Trinity International Consultants, while he was living in Franklin.

He moved with his family to North Falmouth in 2001 and served briefly as general manager of ORE Offshore in the Falmouth Technology Park. ORE was later sold to EdgeTech in West Wareham.

I’m not an engineer or a scientist, he said. I consider myself a technologist, and I’ve immersed myself in the technologies and the markets for every company I’ve represented in my career, learning directly from some of the best engineers and inventors in marine technology.

While running Trinity International Consultants, Mr. Withrow joined MOTN’s board of directors in 1999 and became the organization’s president in 2001.

At first, it was a volunteer position, but MOTN hired me as its paid executive director from 2002 to 2005, he said. After that, I scaled back to the director and served in that position until 2019.

Mr. Withrow said his greatest accomplishment with MOTN was creating and chairing the Ocean Tech Expo, or OTE—in partnership with New Wave Media, publisher of Marine Technology Reporter magazine—in 2008.

Part of the trade show’s success came from its location and its innovative format, Mr. Withrow said.

While most trade shows keep the exhibition hall separate from the conference speakers and scientific papers, OTE combined them both in a single space, which allowed attendees to intermingle more easily, he said. The Newport location also allowed companies to demonstrate their systems to potential customers on the water.

Among the many sponsors and participants were WHOI, the Woods Hole Group, Benthos (now Teledyne Benthos), EdgeTech and Hydroid.

In addition to his work with MOTN and Trinity International Consultants, Mr. Withrow has served on the board of directors of the Northeastern Regional Association of Coastal Ocean Observing Systems, or NERACOOS.

Locally, he worked from 2007 to 2010 with Robert A. Curtis of Mashpee as a project leader for the former Regional Technology Development Corporation, or RTDC, of Cape Cod—an initiative of the Falmouth Economic Development & Industrial Corporation, or EDIC. During his tenure, RTDC and WHOI signed a technology transfer and entrepreneurial services agreement designed to accelerate the transfer of WHOI technology innovations to the marketplace.

Also, Mr. Withrow has worked with the provincial government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, to help establish and expand its marine technology industry, and he is now a global business development consultant with TOYO Corporation of Japan.

Source: Capenews