Witte elected chairman of American Club

Witte elected chairman of American Club J. Arnold Witte Sr., president and chief executive officer of Donjon Marine Co. Inc., has been elected chairman of the American Steamship Owners Mutual Protection and Indemnity Association Inc., popularly known as the American Club.

Witte

   Established in 1967, Donjon Marine is a provider of multifaceted marine services including marine salvage, heavy-lift, diving, dredging and related emergency response services. It is headquartered in Hillside, N.J.
   Witte is a past president of both the American Salvage Association (ASA), as well and the International Salvage Union, and is currently vice president of the ISU.
   Markos Marinakis of Marinakis Chartering Inc. in New York has been elected deputy chairman of the club.
   Witte succeeds Paul Sa of Standard Shipping Inc. in New York, and Marinakis succeeds James Sweeney of Penn Maritime Inc. in Stamford, Conn. Sa had been a director of the club since 1992 and chairman for a decade. Sweeney had been a director since 1994 and vice chairman since 2000.
   The American Club, established in New York in 1917, is a member of the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs, a collective of 13 mutuals, which together provide P&I insurance for some 90 percent of all world shipping.
   P&I insurance protects a vessel and its owners and operators against liability for bodily injury and third-party property damage.
   At its annual meeting, American Club members also elected Rogelio Salinas Garcia of Grupo Protexa, Monterrey, Mexico, and Richard H. Brown, Jr. of New York, as directors for the next year.