During the Cold War she tracked submarines as the Navy’s USS Persistence. Now the 68-meter vessel is training the next generation of Great Lakes ship captains and chief engineers. She is the Michigan State T/S with her complement of 50 students from the Great Lakes Maritime Academy (GLMA) in Traverse City. After four years of classroom book learning and strengthening seamanship skills in Michigan, cadets will take extensive exams to become licensed as merchant deck officers and engineers. The ship and its student crew stop in Sault, MI about twice a month during educational trips to St. Marys and Lake Superior starting in May and ending in October. Look for the Michigan moored near the stern of the Valley Camp ship. “St. Marys is a very unique place to train,” said Chuck Miller, GLMA Instructor and Michigan First Mate. “It has some of the most difficult pilots in the world. You’re moving a boat around 90-degree turns in a current, often in ice.” Over the course of four years, Miller students take two-week Michigan trips that focus on the Detroit, St. Clair and St. Marys rivers as well as lake trips to the ports of Duluth, Buffalo and Chicago. “The cadets in the deck officer program do what a working mate would do in Michigan: steer the ship at the helm, conduct chart work and command wherever the ship goes,” Miller said. “Students in engineering track with an engineering officer,” Miller added. “They conduct rounds, monitor propulsion in the engine room. . . up to the fixing of the door handles. If there’s something that can break on a boat, the cadets are taught how to fix it.” The “at sea” portion of the training continues with a 100-day academy internship on a Great Lakes cargo ship. It is here that deck officer cadets learn how to manage a crew to load cargo and engineers are trained by keeping a ship’s engineers together. Students then hone their skills with an “ocean project” that sees them work another 100 days on their choice of a Great Lakes or an ocean freighter. Some students even choose cruise ships or oil tankers, depending on where they want to build a career. At the end of it all, cadets earn a bachelor’s degree in Naval Technology from North Central Michigan College, GLMA’s home institution. At any given time, there are 200 students in the program. Miller, originally from Las Vegas, Nev., is a graduate of the deck officer program. He ended up as a first mate at Michigan and an academy instructor in a rather roundabout way. “After working as a golf pro and EMS technician since high school, I enlisted in the Coast Guard,” he said. “There’s not a lot of water in Las Vegas, but the Guard made me fall in love with his big bodies. After eight years, I got my training benefits and went through GLMA’s deck officer program between 2015 and 2019.” Miller has since worked as third and second mate with two Great Lakes shipping companies: Grand River and Great Lakes Fleet, owned by US Steel. He was hired as Michigan’s first fellow in 2020 and, earlier this year, as a GLMA instructor. “We have a lot of vets like me from all disciplines,” he said. “We haven’t seen the Space Force yet, but I’m sure that’s coming.” Another veteran ended up in the Great Lakes in a roundabout way: T/S Michigan State. After launching in 1985, the USS Persistent tracked Soviet — and then Russian — submarines until 1995 before being transferred to the Coast Guard in 1998. The Great Lakes Naval Academy welcomed the Cold War vet in 2002, when it gave the vessel its current name.
