Apostolos Belokas, Founder & Managing Editor, Safety4sea.com

Forum Chairman & Panel Moderator

Apostolos is a Maritime QHSE Consultant, Trainer and Project Manager with 20 year background in shipping as Technical, Marine, Safety & Training Superintendent and Consultant. He entered the industry back in 1992 as Engineering Superintendent with a leading ship manager operating a mixed fleet of bulk and oil/chemical tankers and later shifted to regulatory compliance and QHSE issues as superintendent and later as a consultant.

Apostolos has successfully completed a wide range of QHSE projects including more than 250 management system projects (ISM/ISO 9001-14001-18001/TMSA/MLC), 500 vessel and office audits to various standards and he has personally trained more than 2,500 people in a wide variety of QHSE subjects. He is holding Mechanical Engineering Bachelor and Master's specialising in Energy & Environment and Master's Degrees in Maritime Business and Business Administration (MBA), all of them awarded with distinction.

Apostolos has co-founded IBS Marine back in 1998, while he is the founder and Managing editor of Safety4Sea.com from 2010 onwards where he frequently blogs. Safety4Sea is a pro bono concept to raise Maritime QHSE Awareness.

Session 1 : Technical Measures

Georgios Remoundos, Ministry of Development, Competitiveness & Shipping, Pollution Prevention Equipment & Cargoes Department

George is a Naval Architect and Marine Engineer, graduate of the National Technical University of Athens. Having completed post-graduate studies in Quality Management, and further professionally involved, for some years, in various sectors of shipping industry such as engineering, consulting, training, shipbuilding and shipping, he joined the public sector and in particular the Ministry of Merchant Marine in 2001.

During his service in the Ministry (recently the Ministry of Development, Competitiveness & Shipping), he has worked for the Design and Construction Directorate as an engineer and ships' surveyor and headed the Quality Management Department of the Merchant Ships Inspection General Directorate. Also, for the last ten years he has been participating in the Greek national delegation to the IMO and other international and European organizations and committees, regarding maritime safety and marine environmental protection issues.

Presently, he works for the Marine Pollution Prevention Equipment & Cargoes Department while studying, as a PhD candidate, in the Department of Shipping, Trade and Transport of the University of the Aegean.

Professor Harilaos N.Psaraftis, NTUA & IMO MEPC GHG Group of Experts

Harilaos is Professor of Maritime Transport at the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA). He has a diploma from NTUA (1974), and two M.Sc. degrees (1977) and a Ph.D. (1979) from MIT. He has been a faculty member at MIT from 1979 to 1989. He received tenure at MIT in 1985 and returned to Greece in 1989. At NTUA he is the Director of the Laboratory for Maritime Transport (www.martrans.org).Psaraftis's interests are in maritime and intermodal transportation. At MIT he headed research projects on vehicle routing and scheduling and management of marine oil spill response, among others. At NTUA he has been project manager of several projects (EU and other) in practically all areas of maritime transportation, including economics and logistics, safety, security and environmental protection, and ports and short sea shipping.

In addition to his academic duties, from 8/1996 to 3/2002 Psaraftis served as CEO of the Piraeus Port Authority. During his tenure, Pireaus made the list of the top 50 world container ports (1998, No. 41), with traffic more than doubling from 575.000 TEU (1996) to 1.160.000 TEU (2001), and the port was transformed into a Corporation (1999).Psaraftis has been a regular member of the Greek delegation to the IMO since 2006. Among other work, in 2010 he was appointed to the MEPC Group of Experts on Market Based Measures for Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (ongoing activity). In 2011 he was invited by the European Commission (DG-CLIMA) as an expert to Working Group of the European Climate Change Programme (ECCP) on reducing GHG missions from ships, and by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) to the Group of Experts on Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation for International Transport Networks.

Dr John Kokarakis, VP of Technology and Business Development, ABS Europe

Dr John Emmanuel Kokarakis, a 1979 graduate of National Technical University of Athens, holds PhD (1986) and Masters degrees in Naval Architecture (1983) and in Mechanical Engineering (1984) from the University of Michigan. He worked for over ten years as a consultant in technical problems worldwide in the area of technical investigation of marine accidents. He participated in the technical investigation of the Exxon Valdez grounding, Piper Alpha fire and explosion, Aleutian Enterprise foundering and many other accidents of less notoriety. He was a member of the team which developed the Common Structural Rules. The last eleven years he works in the area of classification. He has served at Bureau Veritas and Germanischer Lloyd  in Piraeus.

He is currently the Vice President of Technology and Business Development of ABS Europe, stationed in Piraeus.

Spyridon Zolotas, Country Manager, Greece, RINA

Spyros Zolotas is a Naval Architect and Marine Engineer, graduate of the National Technical University of Athens.After some further post-graduate academic experiences in Greece and abroad, as well as a period of employment with a major engine manufacturer, he joined RINA as exclusive marine surveyor in 1996.

At this position and after a training period at RINA Head Office in Genoa, Italy, he followed various projects of ships in service, as well as newbuildings in Greece, the Black Sea, Rotterdam, Istanbul and others. He is an ISO, as well as ISM, Security and ILO Auditor. From the beginning of 2004, Mr. Zolotas was appointed as Head of RINA Piraeus Office, responsible for the technical management of the Society and its network of surveyors in the area.

As from 2010, he has taken the position of RINA Country Manager, Greece, with the technical and commercial responsibility of the area covering Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, Lebanon and Israel.Under his management, the presence of RINA in Greece was strengthened with the reinforcement of Piraeus Office and the creation of its Plan Approval Center, the Piraeus Yachting Station and recently, the Piraeus Training Center.

Mr. Zolotas is the author of two technical books and various articles, member of the Royal Institute of Naval Architects and Chartered Engineer, as well as European Engineer with FEANI.

Session 2 : Operational and Market Based Measures

Stavros Meidanis, LRQA Marine Business Centre Manager

Stavros first joined Lloyd's Register 1999 and worked as a Marine Surveyor and Quality Lead Auditor, until 2003, when he took over responsibility for development of Lloyd's Register's Quality Assurance Business Development Team in Greece and East European Area. In 2006, he was appointed Marine Client Manager for Lloyd's Register's of Shipping, based in Piraeus. In this role he focused on marine operations, service delivery and business development in Greece, for Lloyd's Register Key Marine Clients.

From November 2008, he was promoted to Global Manager for Marine Management Systems, leading the LRQA/Marine Business Centre. This Business Centre focuses on the development and integration of Management Systems and related products and services for the shipping sector. He is also responsible for the implementation of LR's Group Strategy regarding Marine Management Systems in the Supply Chain across the world.

Cpt. Stephen Bligh, Director, Business Development Maritime Advisory Services, DNV

Stephen heads DNV's Maritime Advisory Services in Region UK and is an internationally experienced professional Maritime Expert. He has over 39 years experience in shipping with 16 years seagoing experience, on a wide variety of ships, a qualified master mariner with command experience.

In addition to his seagoing experience he has New Build and ship Conversion experience working on a number of Projects for P&OCL in various shipyards globally. He then focused on Ship Management and has 17 years of experience,  having held a variety of senior position in ship management, focusing on Container ship, with OCL, P&OCL and subsequently P&O Nedlloyd, based in the Netherlands. He left P&O Nedlloyd in 2003 and Joined the MCA where he was appointed Chief Executive, reporting to the Secretary of State for Transport and is well versed in dealing with Politicians and Government departments. At the MCA he was responsible for all Maritime matters within UK territorial waters including the Coastguard, UK Flag State requirements, Maritime Safety and Maritime Certification and Training. He joined DNV in 2006.

Jan Fransen, Managing Director, Green Award Foundation

Jan Fransen, Managing Director of Green Award, was involved with the set-up of the Green Award scheme in the early nineties when he served the Foundation as a Certification Manager. From 2001 he took on the position of Deputy Managing Director and in April 2005 he was appointed the Managing Director. His previous positions include Nautical Officer and several positions at the Dutch Ministry of Transport and the Port of Rotterdam.

Jan can be seen as the 'expedition leader' of Green Award. In the past 15 years he, supported by the Committee and the Board of Experts, faced several challenges related to staff & finance, development of requirements and growth of number of ships. He visits ports and port authorities, embassies, ministries and certificate holders in order to inform them about the Green Award Foundation and establish relations.

In the opinion of Jan Fransen, schemes like Green Award contribute to motivation and differentiation in Quality Shipping. The market mechanism created by Green Award will result in a preference for Quality Tonnage on the charter market and elimination of substandard tonnage. Sustainable developments in maritime transport will be achieved.

Dr Jon Agust Thorsteinsson, co-founder and CEO of Marorka

Dr Jon Agust Thorsteinsson holds a Ph.D. in engineering from the Institute of Energy Technology at Aalborg University, Denmark. Dr Thorsteinsson has been involved in pioneering research and development projects in the field of energy management processes since 1997. He is a co-founder and CEO of Marorka (http://www.marorka.com) - a leading, award-winning provider of energy management solutions for the maritime industry.