An intermediary between firm and staff who, in the case of Fabio Valentini, comes from a long apprenticeship at Navigazione Laghi.
Moving from hands-on work to a co-ordination role can be challenging, but not when the passion for what you do and to serve others is as strong as Fabio Valentini’s, who started out in Navigazione Laghi on a temporary contract before working as a crew member. He’s come a long way, considering that he’s now Lake Garda professional navigator, a multi-faceted job, as he himself confirms.
What are the duties of a professional navigator?
Mine is primarily an office job, organising the shifts of a workforce which amounts to 150 navi-gators on Lake Garda alone. But there are plenty of opportunities to get outdoors, too, especially when I’m following the building of new ships for our fleet. This enables me to train captains on the specifications of the ships they’ll be skippering.
How are ship captains kept up to date?
We hold training exercises which I personally at-tend to supplement captains’ skills, in which we perform emergency simulations including to-gether with the coastguard, the fire brigade and the police nautical division.
What makes a captain good at what he or she does?
Ship captains are not simply handling ships. They are also the firm’s public face. So they need to know how to manage both crew and passen-gers and they are accountable for anything that happens on board.
You’ve been ship captain too. How did you start out?
I’m from Peschiera del Garda, and as a child I loved watching the hydrofoils from the terrace of my home. Then, when I grew up, I was lucky enough to meet people who worked for Naviga-zione Laghi, and this reignited that passion. Soon afterwards I got a temporary job at the La-zise ticket office.
When did you get on board for the first time?
I started work as a crew member in 1991 and was promoted to assistant engineer in 1997 after a competitive examination. That was the beginning of a career which took me to the highest captaincy grade in 2003, with no tonnage restrictions. I stayed in that until 2017 when the company offered to promote me to professional navigator.
What young people would you recommend a career like yours to?
I’d recommend this life to anyone with a hard-working attitude and the years of apprenticeship necessary. It’s an easy-to-love job but definitely one in which aspiring captains need to be able to respond quickly to unexpected events and take rapid decisions. Luckily the company is like a family and I advise young staff never to be afraid of asking for sup-port if they need it.
