The Interview: Bentley on a maritime promise lost

Helen Delich Bentley believes U.S. lost lead in merchant fleet superiority by not pursuing nuclear-powered vessels

Not really. You can't expect the locals or the state to finance this type of operation. We have a lot of museum ships in the port of Baltimore, and they all are struggling to survive. Some of those are supported locally. When the nuclear submarine USS Baltimore was about to be scrapped in 2000, 2001, and I tried to raise some interest to not allow that to happen, I was told, in essence: "Forget it, Helen. We're not going to put any more money in any museum ships."

I attended the meeting of the Steamship Historical Society of America, and members were bemoaning the lack of interest in maritime history by younger people. Is there a way to spark interest?

We are working to have taught in schools the history of the port and our maritime heritage. It's difficult. I was lucky when I was a newspaper reporter to also produce a TV show about the port that ran for 15 years and built up quite an audience. Many of those who are approaching my age today remind me that they used to have to watch that. We're going to do things on the Baltimore Port Alliance website, we're going to do some things on Facebook to try and generate interest. It's hard. You have to reach out to [younger people] on the computer.

Yet if you go to the Inner Harbor, you see school trips and the kids seem thrilled to be on ships.

I know. They are. We have to get more of them there. We are working with the Maritime Industries Academy, which is a high school in East Baltimore. We're trying to imbue in those students the importance of the port and shipping. I'm always amazed that so many students in Baltimore don't know we have a port and what a port does. Shame on us for not teaching them.

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