As we prepare the first newsletter of 2022, I wanted to start this year off by looking back at the year that was.
2021 brought continued challenges to the market and all of our personal lives as a result of COVID and the resulting lockdowns and restrictions, as well as inclement weather with another series of hurricanes and storms impacting the US Gulf Coast and beyond.
Despite these challenges, 2021 was also a year of tremendous growth as we saw a resurgence throughout the industry with huge cargo volumes at ports and many of operators bringing boats back into operation.
As with our industry, 2021 was also an important year for transition and growth at Helm. Last year we started our transition to our Helm CONNECT 2.0 with the launch of Helm CONNECT Work Rest, the first module of Personnel 2.0, which will continue to be released module by module over 2022. It will be joined by massive improvements to our back end infrastructure and improvements to our UI as part of the first releases of Maintenance 2.0 this year. These changes will let us support an even larger number of assets (and barges!) in the system, while also making it even easier to manage your fleet centrally from within Helm.
As you know, Helm is a big believer in tracking data (as anyone who has used our Dashboards would agree!), and it’s been amazing to watch our growth over the past year. At year end we’d grown to support 280 companies, more than 5000 vessels, and well more than 20,000 users across 30 countries worldwide. The numbers are a testament to support of customers like you, and this year we remain committed growing your trust as a partner supporting your operations better than ever before.
We have an exciting year planned for you. This year we’re not only continuing our drive to 2.0, but we’re also excited to announce many new partners, integrations, and features. Many of these we’ll begin unveiling over the next few months. We’re also excited to announce that Helm Conference will be returning to Victoria this year, and we’re extremely we’ll be able to host you in our hometown this September. It has been a long road to get here, but we’re looking forward to driving forward with all of you in 2022.
Happy 2022 to everyone.
-Nolan Barclay
