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.