Staff Writer

After years of work in the transportation industry, Capt. Jeffrey Monroe recently was named chairman of the National Maritime Security Advisory Committee.

Monroe, 56, lives with his wife, Linda, in a home in Cape Elizabeth they bought 31 years ago from an old sea captain. Monroe sat down recently to talk about his work with the committee and his involvement with the Orthodox Anglican Church in Old Orchard Beach.

What does the National Maritime Security Advisory Committee do and what is your role?

It was established in 2002 under the Maritime Transportation Security Act. Whenever they have a major piece of legislation that affects commerce and industry, they generally attach a federal advisory committee. They wanted to create a committee of professionals who would advise the secretary. When they announced the committee was coming out, Sen. [Olympia] Snowe and Sen. [Susan] Collins went to bat for me and nominated me to the committee. I’ve been on the committee now for about five years and been renewed once. At the last meeting on July 20, they tapped me on the nose and said you’re the chair.

The committee is one of the few committees that advise a secretary directly, they do that through the commandant of the Coast Guard. It is a committee reporting to the secretary of homeland security. Whenever there is any type of initiative that comes up or any type of regulation, the first thing they do is run it by the committee and say “what do you think?” Or, we identify issues that need to be addressed and bring those issues forward.

So over the last five years it’s actually been quite substantive because there’s been a very dramatic approach to addressing maritime security. The reaction immediately after 9/11 was we need to make our seaports safe, so there were a lot of things that occurred very, very quickly. One of them was the transportation worker identification credentials, or TWIC as we call it. What TWIC was designed to do was ensure that everyone connected with a seaport had a full background check, not dissimilar to what they do at airports.

Other initiatives included presidential directive for the restoration of marine transportation system. If the system goes down because of a terrorist act, there is a way to restore the system quickly. We advised the secretary about how to do that.

There’s been an interesting side benefit that we have noticed from all of this. That in planning for terrorist acts, we have also been able to address some issues related to natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina. We find that a lot of the post-mortem stuff, a lot of the things about getting the system back on line, is applicable to natural disasters. Our main focus is prevention and the second focus is response.

How have you enjoyed working on this committee?

It’s been a fun committee. It’s actually the second national committee I’ve served on, the first was the Navigation Safety Advisory Council and did a lot of stuff regarding vessel safety. What I find interesting about the committee is the level of professionals that have come to the table. We have professionals representing some of the largest steamship companies, representing some of the biggest ports, people representing the cruise ship industry, the oil and chemical industry, the off-shore gas industry.

 You can imagine a lot of our discussion at our last meeting was about BP. You get a high level of professionals who come together and bring with them an enormous amount of experience and good information. It’s been very useful for people who aren’t in the trenches, who aren’t part of the industry, to listen to what we’ve had to say and adjust themselves accordingly.

How has your career prepared you for federal committee work?

I’ve been in transportation, I’m an old sea captain. I went to sea for many years and graduated from Maine Maritime Academy and got a degree in transportation management, which broadened my perspective on life. I had taught at the state university when I came back on shore and taught at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy. Then I eventually went to work for the Massachusetts Port Authority and was the deputy director for the port authority. Then I was up here for 10 years as director of ports and transportation for the city of Portland.

 After I left Portland, I started working for a Canadian company. Through the Canadian company I met a great deal of people and started working with people up in Canada on very similar projects to what was going on here in the states. Then I was picked up by a company called HDR, which is an international consulting firm. I was originally asked to get involved with a couple of projects, one of them was a distribution for ethanol and the other was the handling of trash. It’s just blossomed into a whole pile of projects. I really think about the whole transportation system.   

What led you to go to sea and to pursue a career in transportation?

My dad had gone to sea and he also worked for the railroad. My mother also worked for the railroad and they were all convinced I was going to work for the railroad. I came to the conclusion that if I had my choice between running on the rails back and forth in one location or seeing the world, I wanted to see the world.

My goal was to be a Navy chaplain; that was my original intent and had been from day one. During my high school years, I had spent a great deal of time with the church and had done some preparatory stuff. I was all ready to go, but a couple things changed that.

I met my sweetie and the other thing was you get married, you’ve got one child and another one you’re thinking about. The next thing you know you’ve got to make a living and I didn’t have a lot of money to go back to school. So I stayed at sea and said one of these days I’ll get back to that.

How did you get back to that?

I’ve been involved in the church all my life. Even when I was at sea I was in Bible study and prayer groups. It’s something that has always been part of my life. I began studying at a distance-learning program in Ellsworth specially set up for old duffers like me who are taking on something new in their career.

 I started working on that a long time ago, probably right after 9/11. I just sort of decided to buckle down and begin my studies. When I left Portland, I found myself with an enormous amount of time and found I was fairly close to finishing. I went to the board of examining chaplains, completed all the course work you have to do, got my degree in priestly studies.

On Aug. 8 of last year I was ordained a priest. I had previously been ordained deacon. At that time I had been serving as deacon at a church in Waterville. Once I became a priest, the intent was they would shift me to a new mission they were opening in Old Orchard Beach, St. Augustine of Canterbury.

Plans were already evolving on how that was going to happen, so we began the preparatory work on that. That was supposed to kick off in October, which it did. Just in the fall of last year, I got a call from the bishop who asked if I’d be interested in taking on a parish in New Hampshire. It was St. Margaret of Scotland, which is one of the larger and the type of parish you’d really want to be part of, it’s a big parish. I mean we’re Orthodox Anglicans, so as big as it gets.

I’m the rector at St. Margaret of Scotland in Conway and the vicar at St. Augustine of Canterbury in Old Orchard Beach. A vicar is the priest who cares for a mission, as opposed to a rector who has a full church. A mission church is generally a small parish under 30 members. It’s in most cases either a developing parish or a waning parish. Most of our parishes in the diocese are new starts.

Tell us about the mission in Old Orchard Beach and the community developing there.

That’s a very interesting one. The need for the parish had been carefully thought out. We were doing Bible study at St. Paul’s [in Portland] and had people who were coming up from Old Orchard Beach, Biddeford and Saco. Several of them said “gee, I wish you had a church down here in Biddeford-Saco.” And so we got to thinking about it and we contacted many of the people who had been interested.

 Ultimately we felt there was enough support there that we could develop and put together a mission church. We were very, very lucky that one of the members on the mission council is a funeral director and had worked for Hope Memorial Chapel. We met with them and they were just wonderful. We’ve been using their chapel in Old Orchard Beach. I love it, it’s a beautiful facility. We lease it from them and it works out fine.

How many people are involved with the mission church?

We have about 25, which is a nice size considering the mission is only 10 months old. For us we’re very happy with that because there are some missions that have three or five people. I was quite surprised how enthusiastic they are. We do morning prayer and Holy Eucharist in the evening. We’ve had several baptisms, a couple of marriage blessings, a couple of funerals. I was happy to see in a short period of time we really attracted a lot of interest. It’s not only through the worship. We do Bible study, Christen education programs, share fellowship. We have a couple young families, we’ve had people come in who are local waitresses. We try to educate people as to why they’re doing what they’re doing and why it’s important. It’s worked out very well.

What do you find rewarding about your work with the church?

There are moments in my life that I’ve had an opportunity to do things that are very unusual. Baptizing a baby or an adult and bringing them into the Christian family. Staying with somebody as they are in the last part of their earthly life and comforting the family afterward. Watching a young couple come together in marriage. It’s scary but it’s joyful. When you’re at the altar and you’re doing communion, as you’re leading a congregation in worship, you say to yourself, “I’m absolutely undeserving that I should be here.” But God just tapped you on the shoulder and here you are.

 We as clergy are held to a different standard, not by man so much as by God. As a priest once told me, “you’re more subject to God’s justice than you are to his good grace.” All that being said, when you’re in the service of the Lord you really make an effort to try to reach out to people and do everything you can to ensure that people know and experience God through your efforts. You help them build their relationship with the Lord. Those relationships vary, but you come together in a community where you support each other in the faith. Gathering with that community is wonderful. I have these wonderful people, strangers I never knew, who are part of my family and part of the family of Christ.