On 12 February at a gala dinner staged in the Painted Hall at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, London, many leading figures in the shipping industry gathered for the presentation of the Lloyd's List Maritime Excellence Awards.

The first award to be presented, for Excellence in Commitment to Training and Education, was won by the leading Taiwanese shipowner, Evergreen Marine Corporation. Slin Yeh, Chairman of Evergreen UK Ltd, accepted the trophy from Harald Seibecke, of Germanischer Lloyd, sponsors of this particular award.

Evergreen has had a long history of commitment to training and education of its seafarers. For many years, Taiwan trained its officers in shore-based colleges and universities as part of the nation's education system. In 1977, Evergreen's founder, Mr Chang Yung-fa funded a Merchant Ship Hall, styled like the superstructure of a ship, at Tamkang University.

These college students were of course expected to spend some time at sea and from its earliest days, Evergreen provided places for these cadets on its ships. In 1979, Mr Chang went one step further and purchased a vessel specifically for operation as a dedicated training ship. Appropriately, she was re-named Ever Training. In 1985, she was joined by Ever Trust, the former Ever Safety, which had been rebuilt as a 440TEU container vessel with accommodation for 200 student cadets.

In the 1980s, the Evergreen fleet expanded dramatically and by the end of the decade, the company had become the world's largest owner of container vessels. Although two other container operators, having been created through mergers, now control bigger fleets (including charter tonnage), the Evergreen Group is still the world's largest containership owner.

However, Taiwan's state education of seafarers has been much reduced and now there is just one Taiwan university providing courses for marine cadets. Ever Training - after 63 voyages carrying 1,668 cadets - and Ever Trust have been scrapped but Evergreen is still providing places for Taiwanese students to gain sea time with between 20 and 25 ships carrying two or three cadets each during the course period July -January/February.

In 2001/2, Evergreen's new UK company, Hatsu Marine, took delivery of five UK-flag post-Panamax containerships and in 2002, the first two British cadets were placed on Evergreen Group ships.

Faced with a shortage of training facilities in Taiwan, Evergreen decided to construct its own Evergreen Seafarer Training Centre, which opened in August 1999. It was established with three specific goals in mind, namely

	to polish the professional skills of Evergreen Group crew members
	to reduce the risk of accidents or environmental pollution at sea
	to conform to international regulations such as the STCW95 (Standards of Training Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) Code, the ISM (International Safety Management) Code and standards governing port safety inspections

Prior to the opening of this new Centre, Evergreen had trained its staff at various colleges in Taiwan. However, the company felt that these facilities were oversubscribed and its seafarers simply couldn't spend as much time on the simulators as Evergreen would have liked. Building its own training establishment gives Evergreen total control over timetabling of training programmes and furthermore has enabled the company to create a facility precisely tailored to its needs. At any one time, up to 120 seafarers can be found undertaking courses at the Centre.

The Centre is also playing a key role in enabling experienced Evergreen officers to obtain their UK certificates and so crew new ships which are being placed on the UK Register. (NB: As Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations, Certificates of Equivalent Competency are not available to Taiwanese officers.)

Many visitors to the Centre have praised both the hardware and the quality of the training programmes. Maurice Storey, Chief Executive of the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency, stated quite openly to Lloyd's List that the Evergreen Seafarers Training Centre was simply one of the finest facilities he had ever seen anywhere in the world. That it should be dedicated to a single company's requirements made it particularly remarkable, he felt.

Evergreen's intensive requirements meant that initially only Evergreen Group personnel were being trained but Evergreen has now opened its doors to non-Evergreen companies. Furthermore, it has opened additional training facilities in Vietnam and the Philippines specifically geared to providing its Vietnamese and Filipino seamen with the opportunity to train as deck or engineering officers.