Michael Towle owns NavCap Wealth Management, a financial planning and investment firm. But before he headed into the world of finance, he worked in a much different setting: the sea.

“Growing up on the Hill, I grew up surfing, diving, fishing and just being on and around the water a lot,” Towle says. “I always felt this attraction to the ocean, this desire to go to sea.”

Towle started his nautical career at 12 years old, when he snagged a job on a local sailboat. By high school he was working a maritime job as a pinhead — an unpaid deckhand — and he worked his way up to being a deck boss. By the time he graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, he had earned his 100 Ton Captain’s License.

He then spent the next 10 years traveling on boats, from yachts to fishing vessels, as a professional sailor, working out of Sand Diego, Florida and LA.

Towle has always had deep connections to the Port of LA area, with his connection to the port dating back four generations when his great grandfather came to San Pedro in the 1890s and started a tugboat company there. His grandfather worked as a pipe fitter for ships during World War II, and his grandfather and father both worked in refineries at the port.

Towle’s roots in the Port of LA and his maritime background led him to speak as part of the Lectures with Lianne series on Aug. 9, during which he shared about the history of the Port of LA.

“I first started working on boats in LA, and I ended my career in the Port of LA,” Towle says. “I sailed out of San Diego on and off for about eight years. I sailed out of Florida for three years. I sailed all around North America through the Panama Canal. But LA was always my home port, and that was always my go-to spot.”

The Port of LA was founded in 1907 when the City of Los Angeles recognized its potential for growth and created the Board of Harbor Commissioners.

“From the time that the harbor was first discovered by Spanish explorers until really about the 1880s, it was just a mudflat that wasn't really worth anything,” Towle says. “San Francisco [was a] bustling harbor and easy to see. Sheer work and determination from guys like [Phineas Banning] to build the rail line [and] stretch the harbor [with a] build-it-and-they-will-come type attitude worked out, and now it's the busiest commercial port on this side of the country. LA and Long Beach combined is the busiest port in the country.”

Following the port’s founding in the early 1900s, industries like fishing, canneries, oil drilling and shipbuilding exploded around San Pedro area. The city continued to build out the port, widening the channel and building a breakwater to allow larger ships to access the port. Once the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, the Port of LA became a major point for international trade.

After World War II, the Port of LA continued to grow, especially once shipping containers — as opposed to crates and pallets of various sizes — became the standard for cargo. Now, it is one of the largest hubs for international trade in the world. Every year, billions of dollars of cargo passes through the Port of LA, totaling $292 billion in 2023.

“It was interesting to be a small cog in the big wheel that is the Port of LA,” Towle says. “When you go to some of these small ports like Marina del Rey, there are harbors and there's yachts and stuff. But to be down there and watch all of the commerce that happens — the container shipping and the oil and the work boats and the car carriers and all of this stuff that moves through that port — it was fascinating to watch. It's such a diversity of cargo that travels through there, and there was always something different. There was always something new. There's always a challenge — that's part of it. There was always an opportunity to learn.”

After working as a professional sailor, Towle sought out a career that would provide him with more stability after his son was born. He decided to join Merrill Lynch before eventually launching his own wealth management firm. While Towle no longer works on boats, he keeps his maritime background in his life. The logo for NavCap involves a ship’s wheel and the office has nautical charts and pictures of Palos Verdes on the wall, which serve as nods to his past.

Even now, he finds his experience from his maritime days helpful.

“It's actually not as big a switch as you think, going from being a captain to finance,” he says. “It's planning. It's decision-making. It's being decisive with your decisions. It's sticking with them. It's leadership. It's communicating, whether as a captain you're communicating with a crew, or [in] finance, communicating with your clients.”

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Bio:

Emily McGinn is a journalist based in the Los Angeles area. She enjoys reporting on and writing about a variety of topics from lifestyle to news, especially in her areas of specialty, environmental science and political science.