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Mark Twain said, "The secret to success is making your vocation your vacation."

Sheila Best, marine manager at San Francisco Bay, says that's exactly what she's done. Peter Dean, owner and operator of a marina, says he did, too.

"I never once as a child dreamed of being a harbor master," says Best. "I've seriously looked at other [job] options, but this is better than anything else I could do."

Best, a former psychologist for a department of corrections, says she loves boating and water sports so much that she started a diving business in the San Francisco Bay area. However, when she heard there was an opening for a marine manager, she applied.

She says all the harbor masters she knows are avid boaters when they have time. "I know a lot of harbor masters whose vacation is to get in their boat and go to another place and make another harbor master's life miserable."

Dean, a former marketing company employee with a degree in urban geography and physical recreation construction, says he's an avid boater. "I've been a boater all my life," he says. "I even started a yacht club."

Dean says private harbors face difficult competition from government-owned marinas, which can offer bigger facilities because of taxpayer support.

Kathy Messier is a harbor master. She says she enjoys running a municipal marina. "I like it because I'm working on the water and there's nice people," she says. "The thing I don't like is [when] it gets political."

Messier says there are competing interests at most harbors. When a port is municipally owned, the city's governing board makes policy decisions about running the facility. Messier says sometimes issues go before city council that she hasn't had time to address.

"There are times problems come up and people go talk to the council and not me or the port committee. It's because more and more people are using the harbor. It's just growing pains."

Messier adds that it's important for harbor masters to remain detached and non-partisan when dealing with harbor users. "I have to look at the whole picture and say, 'How will this [policy or choice] affect everybody?'"

Best says harbor mastering at a privately owned marina is similar. "You've got to keep a facility safe and check environmental issues," she says. "I could be a campaign manager -- I always have to translate what my boss says to the tenants and others."

Ted Warburton is a harbor master. He says harbor mastering is essentially mid-level management. "It's almost like managing an apartment complex," he says. "A very large apartment complex."

Warburton says boaters using marinas have various needs. Some boaters come frequently and a few live on their boats. Plus, commercial fishers and other water-based businesspeople take numerous trips a day.

"A lot of my day is planning what's going to happen next week or two weeks from now," says Warburton.

Bill Image is a deputy harbor master. He says harbor mastering of any size marina is seldom boring. "It's a very diverse job," he says. "You're into a diverse variety of jobs, people and knowledge. It's a kind of jack of all trades, master of a few."

Image says emergency prevention and planning are major concerns for large commercial ports. He says he's responsible for controlling the flow of chemicals, petroleum and other dangerous products very closely.

"Any movement of dangerous goods through our port has to be approved by our harbor master's office."

Captain Mike Holmes, chief of boating safety for the U.S. Coast Guard, says harbor masters' attention to safety is important. He adds that he believes harbor masters have made boating safer than any single government body.

"It's pretty much a team effort out there. Most of the boating safety is run by states that work closely with harbor masters to promote safety. These guys aren't just collecting fees at the ramp. They're doing their job."

Best and Messier say that women harbor masters are rare, but accepted by their peers. "I've got an all-male crew," says Best. "They all like working for a woman. I had problems with some boaters when I first got here. I don't get that anymore."

Messier says maritime businessmen had some difficulties adjusting to a female harbor master when she took the job six years ago. "Fishermen are a very traditional group and they don't know what to do with a woman [harbor master] sometimes," she says.

"They like to mumble and complain a lot, but feel funny doing it in front of a woman. But they got used to me and mumble and complain now."

Warburton says harbor mastering is unpredictable work and often feels like a different job every day. "We have disasters going on all the time," he says. "When I come to work, I'm prepared for just about anything."

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