by Simmy Willemann ’10

At fifteen years out from Webb, I am no longer in the maritime industry, but I look back fondly on Webb. I now work at Apple decarbonizing consumer electronics, and I’m a mom of a very active and happy 16-month-old, Sahni, who I love playing with. My job is all about problem solving and understanding how things are built, so we can manufacture them differently. Motherhood takes hard work, including all nighters, a sense of humor, and creativity. These themes very much remind me of my time at Webb.

Simmy with her family

In October 2024, I had the pleasure of attending the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Conference in Chicago. The real highlight of being at SWE was meeting the Webb Junior Women – Annabel, Rebecca, Zoe, Millay, and Ally! I was expecting to feel out of touch with the school as I haven’t visited in a while but was happily surprised to connect with these lovely Webbies as if they were in my Webb class. When I meet students from other colleges, I feel a generational divide but that wasn’t so with Webbies. Most fun was sharing all the stories about Webb traditions and crosscorrelating what I had heard changed and what they had heard things were like before. How cool that women live in Stevenson Taylor Mansion now! It’s life-affirming to meet younger Webbies and see their drive and spirit.

At SWE, I was on an Apple panel featuring Women in Operations. I shared my career path from Webb to MIT to Consulting to Apple Mac to Apple Environment and the type of support I received along the way. I now manage three teams at Apple. The Environmental Product Managers lead environmental initiatives including carbon and recycled content on each Apple product line. The Environmental Technology team proves what’s possible, from proof-of-concept manufacturing scrap recycling to iPhone end-of-life disassembly automation. The Safety Subject Matter Experts keep workers in our supply chain safe.

I also shared what it’s like to be a mom and work full time in a leadership position. I didn’t know how I’d feel about going back to work after maternity leave but I’m happy to share that I feel fulfilled both working at Apple and being a mom. My husband and I share parenting responsibilities equally. When there are tradeoffs to be made between my daughter and my work, my daughter is now my priority. I know I provide great value at work already and that I don’t need to be on every call or work trip.

At the SWE Conference, I shared three pieces of advice I have for students at the start of their journey:

• Perspective and what we choose to think about and spend our time on is everything. Focus on what you love doing (and financial security). If you’re spending time on anything else, ask yourself if you’ll care about dropping it when you’re 80? If not, drop. Seneca’s “On the Brevity of Life” gave me perspective on how short life is if you’re not living it for yourself. Once I started making time for violin gigs, my sense of self was strengthened. I could have a bad day at work but a great violin performance, and I was happy. I might have messed up at a violin gig, but I had a great work presentation, and I could still be happy. I’ve found that multiple identities tend to strengthen me and make life more fulfilling.
• People make work more fulfilling than the work itself. Choose teams with people who will encourage you to grow and give you a sense of belonging. If you don’t feel you have community now, look for it. Avoid being so focused on the results that you don’t get to know the people and build relationships.
• It’s never too early in your career to support others. As a woman working in multiple maledominated industries for 15 years, I can share that support goes a long way. Much of the support I’ve received has come from men and rather unexpectedly — asking for my opinion in a meeting, assigning me a visible project that let me prove my skills, or giving me encouragement or specific feedback on how I can improve. The opportunity to support others is there if you keep an eye out for it.  If you don’t know what to do, ask others what their biggest challenge is and how you can support them. Those are two of the kindest questions especially from managers to employees – and then listen and follow up

Simmy with the Class of 2026.

by Kaye Lin, Director of Communications & Marketing

The Man Who Cut Ships in Half

It was a bright Spring afternoon when I found myself staring at a plaque tucked on the wall of Webb’s Couch Academic Center. At first glance, it looked like any other recognition of alumni generosity, but if you leaned in a little closer, right there at the bottom, were the quiet words that summed up the entire Webb experience, at least through the eyes of Gene Schorsch.

It didn’t talk about his rocket division, the ships he reimagined, or the lawsuits he pursued. It spoke about the challenge, and what Webb does to the students who rise to meet it.

Gene didn’t start his Webb story with fanfare. In fact, he revealed that he didn’t get in on his first try. Or his second. But on his third. He lacked a year of foreign language – German or French – a small technicality that closed the door to his dream. But Gene wasn’t the type to walk away.

In 1948, after his third try, the doors opened – and from that moment, he never stopped building. Not just ships and systems, but principles, trust, and a way of thinking that would change everything he touched.

After graduating in 1952, Gene went to work at Sun Shipbuilding. He was young, but not the type to play it safe. When the team was asked to build six old-fashioned breakbulk ships, Gene thought, “What if we don’t?”

Instead, they did the unthinkable. They cut ships that were already in the water in half, extending the ships by 125 feet and deepening their hulls by nine feet, then redesigned them into something more forward-thinking.

Containerization was coming, and Gene could see it before most.

“We cut ships in half and made them longer,” he recalled with a smile. “That’s how bold the thinking was.”

Faced with a contract to build six outdated cargo ships, Gene and his team convinced the client and the government to approve a radical overhaul: extending the ships by 125 feet and deepening their hulls. It was a massive structural shift, but a necessary one as containerization transformed global shipping.

SNAME Photo 10/21/77 – New Flexible Shipbuilding and Ship Repair Facilities

From Ships to Space Space

It wasn’t long before a man walked into the shipyard asking for help building… rockets.

Most people would have laughed him off. Not Gene.

“We didn’t wait for the contract. We built a fake rocket case with ship steel to prove it could be done.”And it worked.

The mock-up impressed Aerojet enough to award Gene the contract for the largest solid rocket casings ever built at the time. At just 34, he was featured in Fortune Magazine, but you’d never hear that from him unless you asked.

Webbies of the graduating class of ’52 in 2019. Gene Schorsch, John Sims, Tom Gillette

Integrity in the Details

Gene shared many great stories, and all of them led to the important themes of integrity and that the devil is in the details.

When two ships he helped design, lost their propeller blades at sea, most blamed it on underwater collisions. Gene wasn’t convinced. He went to Amsterdam, inspected the damage himself, and quietly ran tests using dye-penetrant methods. He realized the problem was in the casting – flaws hidden deep inside the metal.

“You don’t learn this stuff in the classroom,” he told me. “You learn it when you’re responsible for people’s lives.”

He pushed for replacements, even when manufacturers resisted. He was young. They were powerful. But in the end, he was right. The ships sailed again, and safely it did.

Gene wasn’t just an engineer. He was a systems thinker. A builder of ideas.

Redesigning the Industry

When oil companies in Alaska’s North Slope needed to move crude oil across the Arctic, Gene pitched something radical: he would design the tanker, build it, own it, and operate it. All they had to do was pay a daily charter rate. For us nowadays, think of oil tankers as Uber rides.

And when delays in the Alaskan pipeline left one of his tankers idle, he turned it into a grain carrier, and (because of course he did) he invented a vacuum system to unload it, earning a U.S. patent along the way.

Webb Always

Through all of this – every design, discovery, and decades-long lawsuit against corporate fraud – Gene remained, at his core, a Webbie. He and his wife Ruth gathered every year with three other Webb couples for a three-day weekend. He returned to campus. He mentored. He remembered.

Now, going back to the original question I had asked him at the beginning of our meeting, “What made Webb students so extraordinary?”

He told me about a time at Webb when he sat in the basement of Stevenson Taylor Hall with his roommate, sipping Cokes at midnight, wondering why Webbies were built the way they were. They landed on this:

“A lot of us came from hard beginnings. Webb took that raw material and made us better.”

That’s what he believed, and that’s what he lived. He didn’t just walk through Webb’s gates; he carried the place with him for the rest of his life.

The Small Print

If you ever find yourself in the Ruby Lounge, take a moment to lean in close and read what’s engraved on Gene’s plaque.

You won’t see a list of accomplishments. You’ll see a message that only someone like Gene could leave behind – a message about challenge, courage, and what happens when someone believes in you enough to expect everything from you.

Because for Gene Schorsch, Webb wasn’t just a school. Webb was where everything began.

Ruby Lounge plaque. The quote at the end of the plaque states, “Unimaginable achievements await you. Embrace the challenges.”

Growing up in rural Pennsylvania, the last thing I expected was to become a naval architect. But after seeing a Titanic documentary when I was four, I knew I was going to do something ship related. That initial encounter with Titanic sparked a love for ships (particularly with dramatic stories), as well as an obsession with drawing. So much so that by the time Middle School came to an end I struggled to identify any appealing career options, since as far as I knew “draw boats” wasn’t a real job.

But by Divine Appointment the high school art teacher at my small, rural school in the mountains of Pennsylvania knew Professor Gallagher’s family. So, he introduced me to Webb and the career of Naval Architecture.

A great irony of my time at Webb, though, was the slow decline of the time I spent really drawing boats beyond notebook doodles. That trend continued as I began my career at SAFE Boats International (near Seattle) and as my wife and I began raising our family.

By early 2020, in the midst of COVID, we decided it was time to move back to the east coast in order to be closer to family and away from the dreary Seattle winters. I took a position with Combatant Craft Division, and we began developing our homestead in the country outside of Suffolk, VA with our five children. Through much of that time my drawing paper and pencils languished on the shelf.

It was only in late 2022, when the kids began sleeping better, that the inspiration to start drawing again struck me. I saw an old drawing from high school and wanted to try it again. That experience reignited my love of drawing, and I launched my art studio in June 2023.

As I have started sharing my artwork, one of the surprising results has been the joy I have found in honoring and celebrating the broad maritime history and heritage we love as naval architects, but also the very personal achievements we experience in our careers. The commissions I’ve had the privilege to draw (so far) have celebrated either a career or specific, meaningful project. And it is such an honor to contribute to that celebration through my artwork.

The excitement I’ve found has inspired the idea for a drawing that will celebrate the heritage of American naval architecture broadly. The idea is an image of William Webb’s Young America and William Francis Gibb’s United States crossing paths. The two very patriotically named ships were launched nearly 100 years apart, and both were the product of two incredibly significant naval architects in American maritime history. I am excited about this drawing because of how meaningful I think it will be to people with connections to naval architecture and who take pride in our maritime heritage.

And so, as I am given the privilege of celebrating the achievements of my peers and our shared maritime history and heritage, I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to make “draw boats” a real job after all.

If you’d like to follow my art journey, you can find my work in my online gallery at BenFisherArt.com.

I also post regularly on social media- I’m on LinkedIn: BenjaminDFisher, Facebook: BenFisherArt and Instagram: Naval_Art.chitect

In October 2020, the Webb Board of Trustees resolved that Webb’s commitment to excellence extends to a commitment to a diverse and inclusive campus community, and several Strategic Initiatives were begun to reinforce this vision.  Now, over four years later, it is time to reflect on progress made and challenges encountered.  We have traveled well down this road, but our journey is not complete.  

Progress on Strategic Initiatives:

Recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups at Webb

• The admissions process now takes input from a wider group – students, faculty, and administration – for a holistic view of prospective candidates, with awareness training for potential bias.
• Our generous donors have substantially grown endowments that help alleviate room & board costs for those with financial need.  Combined with foundation and government support and minimal student loans, over $300,000 has been made available annually, enabling students with need to attend Webb.  This program has benefited up to 25% of our students and is a powerful recruiting tool for prospective students.
• The applicant pool has grown 32% since 2020 and diversity metrics have increased even more, with the number of first-generation-college applicants doubling. Our newly hired Assistant Director of Admissions will build on outreach initiatives trialed under this program to further broaden our applicant pool.
• Webb now has two on-call staff providing 24/7 support to students, helping them cope with academic and life pressures, contributing to improved retention and graduation rates. 

A campus and community culture of equity and inclusion

• We have focused on initiatives that support dialog, collaboration, and trust on campus, starting with orientation week sessions, building through community participation events and activities, with support by student leadership who set annual goals on improving problem areas.  Outside speakers from industry and academia have shared their views on these topics.  
• Regular surveys measure a range of cultural issues, with interventions provided where appropriate.  Student clubs – WoW (Women of Webb), CoGas (Coalition of Gays and Such), MEOW (Minority Establishment of Webb) – provide the opportunity for open communication channels for underrepresented communities.  
• The ACT (Assistance and Care Team) now takes a more active, real-time role in engaging with community issues as they arise.
• The Webb Alumni Association initiated workshops at SNAME focusing on raising awareness of diversity challenges in the maritime industry.  Webb’s 25% female population remains ahead of the industry at large.  Change is taking place, but slowly.

The academic program, culture, and faculty/staff diversity

• The Humanities curriculum now includes a wider range of topics:  alternative sources, cultural comparisons, viewpoint bias, logical fallacies, and ethics as seen through current events.  A new course was introduced to enhance critical thinking and analysis skills.
• The faculty have kicked off a thorough curriculum review to ensure our curriculum provides the knowledge and skills necessary for our graduates to succeed in their careers and become valued members of a diverse society.  After further internal development it will be reviewed with industry partners and students before implementation begins.
• Faculty orientation, mentorship, and professional development are part and parcel of delivering the best educational product to our students and in making Webb an inviting workplace.  Initiatives in this area are ongoing and fully budgeted.  Annual training on Title IX topics reinforces the importance of respect for each person on campus.
• Marketing of faculty and staff positions now reaches a wider audience, but we have a challenge with faculty recruiting.  It has been difficult to attract a wide group of qualified candidates to teach in our predominant specialty-knowledge areas.  

Communications and the Board

• The Board continually seeks to develop Trustee candidates who represent a diversity of views and backgrounds to further its important work of supporting Webb’s mission.  The Board is significantly more diverse today; for example, women now constitute 25% of the Board.
• A designated committee, with student representation, reports on diversity and cultural awareness topics at every Board meeting.  The full Board participated in a workshop on these topics most recently in May 2024.

Looking Forward:  Webb Values

Our progress on these initiatives has laid the foundation for building on our achievements and addressing new challenges.  The Board now broadens its objectives to integrate all values of the Webb community, including those highlighted in earlier initiatives, in an updated resolution.

View Board Resolution

Webb provides more than an engineering education.  The Webb experience seeks to instill the all-important values of Excellence, Community, and Opportunity – values that will guide our students and graduates throughout their career and enable them to contribute to a better society.  Working together, the Board, administration, faculty, and students identified how these values translate to behaviors and actions in our community.  We invite the wider Webb community to comment on the results of our collaboration.

View Webb Values

With best regards,

Mark Martecchini ’79, P’09, President