Award Recipients

Award Recipient

Capt. Arie L. Bleicher

Award Year: 2010

Rodney N. Houghton Award

The Rodney N. Houghton Award is presented for the best feature article in Sea History in the preceding year. The award is named after Rodney Houghton (1938–2007), a dedicated NMHS trustee and passionate advocate for advancing maritime history education.

Captain Arie L. Bleicher (1919–2017)

Born in Vienna, Captain Arie L. Bleicher enrolled in the maritime school in Civitavecchia, Italy, in 1937. He served as a seaman in a British Royal Engineers Company in WWII; he was captured in North Africa and remained a prisoner of war until the war’s end. He obtained his master’s license in 1952 and eventually settled in New York, where he attended the School of Maritime Insurance and became a maritime insurance claims adjuster. Moving to San Francisco in 1957, he co-founded Marine Chartering. After his retirement from the shipping business, he remained active in maritime affairs and organizations. Capt. Bleicher was one of only a few non-lawyer members of the Maritime Law Association of the United States, and founder of the Society of Maritime Arbitrators of San Francisco. He has served as one of two US representatives on the more than 100-year-old Documentary Committee of the Baltic and International Maritime Council, headquartered in Copenhagen. Captain Bleicher was a long-time member of the Board of Directors and an ardent supporter of the Friends of the San Francisco Maritime Museum Library (J. Porter Shaw Library at San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park).

Categories: Maritime Organization, Shipping Owner/Operator