As of July 2025, every vessel, port facility, and offshore operation in U.S. waters must have a cybersecurity program under the Coast Guard’s new Final Rule — and most commercial operators aren’t ready.  

This session cuts through complicated jargon to provide a practical guide for working maritime operations. Drawing on hard-won lessons from naval cybersecurity, speakers will give commercial operators a clear, practical path to compliance without blowing their budgets or timelines. 

Attendees will:

• Understand exactly what the Coast Guard Cybersecurity Final Rule requires
• Learn the critical difference between IT and OT cybersecurity, and why that distinction shapes your entire compliance strategy
• Identify the three vulnerabilities most operators overlook 
• Walk away with a realistic first step to compliance

Offshore lifting and handling systems are evolving fast — driven by deeper waters, complex projects, and the growing role of remote and autonomous technologies.  

The industry is moving toward modular, containerized equipment and embracing electrification, automation, and digital controls across cranes, winches, launch-and-recovery systems, and cable and pipe lay equipment. In this session, a panel of industry stakeholders will explore these changes and discuss how to support the next evolution of this offshore sector. 

Attendees will:

• Understand what modular and automated systems mean in practice for mobilization time, lifecycle cost, and operational flexibility
• Explore how new handling systems are being designed to support subsea robotics and autonomous technologies
• Hear how the industry is navigating the tension between innovation and regulatory alignment, and why a strong U.S. industrial base matters for long-term supply chain resilience 

Most maritime operators are still running their fleets the way they always have: crew credentials tracked in spreadsheets, maintenance logs in binders, and training records scattered across email chains. It worked until it didn’t. Vessels got held up because a credential lapsed and nobody caught it. Shoreside staff spent their days re-entering data instead of supporting the fleet. New hires showed up without the right endorsements because no one had a clear picture of what training they needed. 

This panel puts those operators on stage to talk about what changed when they made the switch to modern tools for fleet management. They’ll speak directly to what the transition looked like from the inside, what was easier than expected, what took longer, and what the ROI looked like once the dust settled.

Attendees will:

• Hear firsthand how operators moved from manual processes to modern fleet management systems, and what that transition required
• Understand the real costs of staying on paper: time, compliance risk, and mariner retention
• Learn what to look for when evaluating tools, how to make the case for change internally, and what operators wish they had known before they started 

• • Walk away with a clear sense of where to begin this operational transition