Before creating UMI SAN, our founder, commander Airton Rodrigues, acquired great experience in national and international waters. After years of study and preparation at the Naval School, he went on to work in the Brazilian Navy, where he learned great lessons at sea, many aboard the old Oceanic Sailboat Cisne Branco.

On this vessel, Airton and eleven other new graduates of the Guard, under the command of other officers, ventured on a pioneering voyage of instruction that crossed the Atlantic in a seventy-year-old sailboat, with very few resources. The crew went through great challenges on the high seas, and it was thanks to teamwork and the critical role of the leader that they all arrived at their destinations safely.