Paul Vos started out as an apprentice marine engineer in the Dutch merchant navy in 1970. He worked worldwide on a variety of ships such as cargo, container and cruise liners, both diesel- and steam turbine-driven.
While working as a marine engineer, he attended school in between the "sailing years", which was made possible at the time by the Dutch marine engineer certification system. The last few years Paul spent in a typical Dutch environment, the dredging industry. He worked as a first assistant and later as chief engineer on so-called hopper dredgers all over the world (the Netherlands, Canadian Arctic, Persian Gulf, etc.).
Paul always had an interest in the drilling industry and for this reason he joined Sedco from Dallas (Texas) in January 1983. For a short while he worked as a marine engineer and then became a rig mechanic, subsea engineer and subsea supervisor on a DP drill ship and several semi-submersibles.
Early 1996 he joined ModuSpec Singapore and started to work as a surveyor. So far he has conducted numerous surveys (about 275) on all types of drilling rigs (land and offshore), supply boats and snubbing units, mostly in Asia, but also in Norway, Africa and the USA. Since September 2010 Paul has been part of the ModuSpec training department, mainly the well control section, which became a new territory to be discovered.
Paul Vos says:
"Being a trainer gives me the possibility to share knowledge and explain the details of the equipment which is used on a daily basis in the drilling industry. It is fun to find out that the course attendants are eager to learn and sometimes come up with questions that I had never thought about. Taking a different view at systems, which had always seemed perfectly logic to me, compels me to dive even deeper into the books to come up with the right answer. The different training courses given by ModuSpec are no doubt a valuable contribution to personnel engaged in the various disciplines of the oil patch, starting at roughneck level up to the management positions."
