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Written by Kari Reinikainen Kari Reinikainen
Category: More News More News
Published: 08 June 2018 08 June 2018

Per-Olof Karlsson, director at  Aboa Mare, the Turku based institution that offers degree and continuing education for the maritime industry, has been awarded maritime theme award in Finland.

The award committee comprised of representatives of the country's shipping industry, maritime trade unions and the University of Turku.

Karlsson has worked in maritime education for 30 years with the same positive attitude in developing the field and its operations environment. “The operations in Finland’s oldest vocational institution have grown more and more diverse and reached a broader student body,’ Aboa Mare said in a statement.

Under Karlsson’s leadership, Aboa Mare has directed an ever increasingly amount of its operations to international waters and exported Finnish expertise in the form of maritime education to the Philippines, among others. The latest partnership agreement was concluded with a South Korean maritime institution.

"Collaboration with actors in the field has been easy and fruitful; solutions to problems have always been found,' Aboa mare noted.

 Karlsson graduated as a sea captain in Turku in 1985 and worked on merchant vessels for several years. In 1988, he began teaching in Turku but combined teaching and his career on the seas for many years. Since 2002, he has worked as head of Aboa Mare, which is a consolidation of the Novia University of Applied Sciences and the vocational institution, Axxell.

The purpose of the maritime theme award is to give credit to a person or actor in the field that has improved the operational prerequisites in seafaring, increased the esteem of seafaring, developed collaboration or increased visibility in the field. The decision to choose Karlsson for this year’s award was unanimous.