Announcing the 2019 Door County Mariner Award Winners
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The winners of the annual Door County Mariner Awards and Coast Guard Person of the Year Award were announced Aug. 5 at the Sturgeon Bay Yacht Club. BM1 Andrew Michaels, the operations petty officer for Station Sturgeon Bay, earned the Coast Guard Person of the Year Award, which recognizes a local Coast Guard member who exemplifies its core values. He single-handedly coordinates joint agency operations throughout the waters of Green Bay and Lake Michigan.
Bob Perlewitz earned the Mariner Award, which recognizes individuals who have had a significant, positive, lasting impact on the Door County maritime community. It is given to one living recipient and posthumously to historical figures.
When the John Purves was given to the Door County Maritime Museum in 2003, Bob Perlewitz was chosen to lead the monumental rehabilitation and restoration project. Working with a core group of 10 volunteers and coordinating an additional 60 people over five and a half years, Perlewitz and his crew transformed the Purves into a thing of beauty.
Arthur (Art) Zuehlke received a posthumous Mariner Award for his lasting impact on Door County and the Sturgeon Bay shipbuilding industry during a marine-engineering career that spanned more than 40 years, especially his tenure as the president of Bay Shipbuilding Corporation (now Fincantieri Bay Shipbuilding). Under his leadership, Bay Shipbuilding built 15 new self-unloading vessels and converted many others.Captain Clifford B. Hart also received a posthumous Mariner Award for his career as a Great Lakes sailor and prominent Sturgeon Bay citizen during the early 20th century. Hart began his sailing career at age 12, became the captain of his own ship at a very young age and established a successful, Oconto-based shipping company with his brother in 1873. In 1905, he sold his interest in the company and established the Sturgeon Bay-based Hart Transportation Company.
