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Captain, Training Ship Golden Bear (TSGB)
California State University Maritime Academy
Captain Samar Bannister is an experienced master mariner with an unlimited master's license, the highest grade of seafarer qualification. She brings decades of deep-sea experience and now commands the Training Ship Golden Bear (TSGB). But it was if her “compass had swung true” when she was named Cal Maritime’s first female captain. A proud Cal Maritime alumna, she says her time and education received there, “allowed the dreams of a small-town girl from Colorado to become a reality. It opened my eyes to the possibilities of what was out there, and prepared me for a unique career of being a merchant mariner.” The TSBG serves as a working classroom for members of the Corps of Cadets, provides two months of at-sea training every summer for first– and third-year cadets, and serves as a laboratory for new marine technology.