Gerald F. B. Cooper has a lifetime of experience in maritime administration, the shipping industry and commerce. Specialist knowledge with matters concerning open registries and flag state operations in maritime safety, prevention of marine pollution, seafarers training and certification as well as general shipping policy matters experience gained as Commissioner of Maritime Affairs of Liberia. Cooper was a Permanent Representative to the International Maritime Organization (IMO); an Executive Board Member of the World Maritime University, and a Governor of the same institute. He has served as a Director of the Seatrade Academy in Cambridge, England, and lectured on Open Registry and Offshore Companies. Through his shipping consultancy firm Cooper provided advice to shipping companies on a range of subjects relating to international shipping affairs and trade. He worked with Klenworth Benson’s shipping arm, Harley Mullen in London, where he became an active member of the International Maritime Industries Forum movement to promote ship scrapping as a way to eliminate unsafe ships and at the same time do away with surplus shipping tonnage. His commitment to ship breaking led him to Liberia after five years in London where he established the Atlantic Shipbreaking Group. This integrated Shipbreaking, steel recycling mill and oxygen production factories employed more than two hundred people and rolled steel bars in Liberia for the first time.Cooper’s activities in the area of international maritime affairs have gained him recognitions from Government with national Decorations and Honors of Knight Grand Commander, African Redemption (KGCA) and Grand Band, Star of Africa (GBSA); special recommendation from the President of the United States of America for intervention which resulted to agreement on the international convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (MARPOL) 1973 and Protocol of 1978; and a place in Who’s Who in Africa in the 1980s.Most recently, Maritime Cooper Associates provided executive consultancy services to the Liberian International Ship and Corporate Registry (LISCR).