GSS Marine Services: expert marine contractors

GSS is an expanding company, playing an active role in marine construction and marine support services around the coast of Britain and mainland Europe, rapidly making a name as marine consultants and marine contractors.

Recent activity has also seen GSS expanding into Africa, with contracts underway in Sierra Leone and Nigeria.

Projects supported by GSS include coastal work, bridge and marine work, piers and jetties, pipe and cable laying, welding and diving support and marine piling. And although MOD contracts comprise a substantial part of the workload, the company now undertakes major civil contracts in both Britain and Europe. This includes a move into the renewable energy industry, particularly in construction support and repair and maintenance of offshore wind farms.

Its varied fleet of vessels gives GSS the capacity and versatility to offer a wide range of services, and the expertise and can-do attitude amongst its personnel allows it to successfully tackle challenging contracts and come up with innovative solutions to complex problems.

GSS was founded in 1989 to provide high quality plant and labour to the Royal Navy and the maritime construction industry, and quickly proved its worth.

However an injection of fresh purpose was added in 2005, when the current managing director, Jamie McGarry, took part in a management buy-out, which led to an expansion of the fleet, with bigger boats and increased capabilities.

The management buy-out also saw GSS diversify successfully into other markets and undergo significant growth, more than doubling its workforce in just four years, from 21 in 2005 to 53 in 2009. With this growth as marine consultants as well as marine contractors, the company has been moving more and more into long-term, large-scale contracts, while still retaining the capacity to handle smaller one-off jobs.

Internationally, GSS is currently supporting dredging and construction operations in Sierra Leone, and oilfield work in Nigeria, and 2011 will also see the company going to Papua New Guinea to assist in pipelaying.

Closer to home, the opening of an office in Holland has proved productive, with an increasing role in the Dutch and Danish market and penetration of the rapidly expanding market in offshore renewables in the Baltic.

Whatever the scale or location of the contract, all GSS’s projects are underwritten by the continual drive for quality which has proved such a big attraction for clients.