Finish the Year Strong...

There’s five minutes left in the soccer match. You already lost half of the fourth quarter to an injury. Will you fold, or will you continue the endeavor? As a maritime professional working in government spheres, I had lost 43 days, or just about half of 4th quarter 2025, to the government shutdown. Deadlines and guarantees were delayed indefinitely; Plan A was not an option. Plan B, involving last-mile logistics between grocery stores and SNAP recipients, was also embattled. I took Kellogg CEO Gary Pilnick’s controversial recommendation to heart, and had bananas and cereal for dinner on several occasions. After all, I was spending a lot of time in grocery stores, dreaming of a brighter future, where my hard-earned degrees and marine engineering skills could be put to use. As I was about to write off the second half of 2025 as an annus horribilis, a bad experience, I got a call. I was the one person with the experience and capabilities to solve a problem of confounding variables, at sea. Don’t count yourself out.