Mike Vlahovich (mike v.) has worked in the maritime trades for over 55 years as a commercial fishermen, builder and restorer of wooden boats, technical college instructor; charter boat captain, and maritime preservationist. His experience with wooden boats along the working waterfront of Puget Sound, SE. Alaska, Chesapeake Bay, and the Adriatic Sea earned him the Washington State Governor’s Heritage Award in 1999, and a National Endowment for the Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016 for his efforts to maintain the traditional skills and stories of America’s coastal communities.

Earning a Master of Arts degree in Cultural Sustainable from Goucher College in Towson, Maryland, he has served as field advisor during international maritime exchanges between the USA and Bosnia. His several years in maritime nonprofit development was instrumental in Vlahovich being invited as a guest presenter on American maritime heritage programming at the European Union parliament member conference at Betina, Croatia in 2016. He has since established the NGO Maritime Education Association (MEA, aka: Maritima Educare) in his father’s birth village of Sumartin, island Brac’, Croatia. Strengthening Croatian maritime connections between the residents of Puget Sound and the islands of Croatia is Mike’s passion; something he is accomplishing through international youth exchanges, Sister City initiatives, and festival participation. His ultimate vision is the establishment of a school of wooden boatbuilding at the shipyard in Sumartin, something that existed under the former Yugoslav government.