Forty fabulous years of Baird Publications

I have just noticed that this month marks forty years since Baird Publications was established.

Apart from making me feel older, as I was just thirty when we launched, it has made me remember many of the amazing things that have happened to me, my family, the company and the wider global maritime industry since 1978.

We have been very fortunate to have been involved with such an exciting, innovative and rapidly improving industry and the generally excellent people involved with it.

Those, and I know there are many of you, who have been involved with us since the beginning, will have similar memories to my own. It has been a period of fantastic and relentless progress, which has resulted in widespread improvements. They have covered all aspects of maritime operations: safety, economics, the environment, comfort, co-operation, maintenance, reliability and much more.

However,  despite very widespread improvement, our industry still has a long way to go, particularly in the developing parts of the world. There has barely been any improvement in many of the aspects mentioned above in most of the less developed, and a few developed, countries. Although I’m unlikely to be around to see it, I sincerely hope that the developed country improvements will spread globally over the next four decades.

This is a good time, too, to thank all those readers, subscribers, advertisers, columnists and journalists who have been aboard for all or part of this lengthy voyage. Your support, comments, criticisms, ideas, and friendship, have all been very much appreciated by all at Baird Publications.

Thank you for forty fabulous years.


Neil Baird

Co-founder and former Editor-in-Chief of Baird Maritime and Work Boat World magazine, Neil has travelled the length and breadth of this planet in over 40 years in the business. He knows the global work boat industry better than anyone.