PEOPLE | CULTURE | HAPPENINGS
A Wrightsville Beach couple works and plays on the water
The Salt Life
BY GABRIELLA DIONISIO
WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH native Hank Carter and
his wife, Britt Scheinbaum, have always been
infatuated with the salt life. As someone born
and raised in the area, Hank’s love for the
town and the ocean has been embedded in
his identity for as long as he can remember. Britt, too, grew up by the
sea.
“That’s one of the things that attracted us, our love of water,” Hank
says. “And not having to wear shoes.”
It’s no wonder that water is at the heart of what they do each day.
Hank works on it as chief mate of an articulated tug and barge
(ATB), a combination of a 6,000-horsepower tug attached by pins to
the stern of a 140,000-barrel tank barge. He works a three-weeks-on,
three-weeks-off shift, usually in the Gulf of Mexico between Texas and
Florida. He is responsible for navigating the boat and ensuring everything
is smooth sailing when he’s on duty.
Britt wants to make sure it’s clean and plentiful. She’s the East Coast
lead for a U.K.-based company matching emerging technologies with
water and wastewater service providers.
“We provide an overall understanding of the situation and of our
water environment,” she says. “We assess what the needs are and
develop partnerships to improve the situation. We outsource innovation
for water utilities, end users of water. What we do is scan the
market for all emerging technologies for water treatment and management
and present them to utilities.”
As a graduate fellow working with the North Carolina Coastal
Federation last year, she helped write the Lower Cape Fear River
Blueprint, an effort to protect, manage, and restore the natural
resources of the lower Cape Fear.
Hank grew up on Harbor Island, spending his childhood and teen
years surrounded by water. Fishing and surfing were two of his favorite
pastimes, and activities he still enjoys.
Britt was born on an island halfway around the world —
Madagascar, off the southeast coast of Africa. That was just the beginning
of her globetrotting experiences. Residency in countries including
Malawi, the Philippines, and Switzerland would follow.
“My dad was a U.S. Foreign Service officer,” she says. “We lived and
traveled all over the place.”
Her father’s job not only provided interesting locales, it also ignited
a sense of purpose. She was determined to follow him into the
Foreign Service, and studied International Relations and Affairs at
Sweet Briar College in Virginia. It’s a degree she still uses, just not the
way she originally intended.
“Up until my senior year, I had a very organized plan,” she recalls.
“But the summer before that last year, I took an internship with an
embassy abroad and knew that I wasn’t cut out for this line of work.”
Though sent into a tailspin, she listened to her gut and did what any
confused post-grad would do: jetted off to Japan and taught for two
years. After returning to the States, she took a job working for a children’s
museum in Brooklyn and eventually found herself in Washington,
D.C. — the place she would call home for the next nine years.
Around the time she transitioned from New York to D.C., Hank was
wrapping up his communication studies degree from the University
of North Carolina Wilmington and trying to find a job that would pay
for the family’s beach house after his parents moved to Poland, where
his father worked for two years.
Britt Scheinbaum and Hank Carter wade in the waters of Motts Channel, near their Wrightsville Beach home. A couple of weeks after the
photo, Britt gave birth to Henry Lyman Carter II.
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