Ira Breskin is a journalist, lecturer, and editor, focusing on maritime-related subjects. He is the author of The Business of Shipping (9th edition).

Professor Breskin speaking at the New York Yacht Club in New York City.

Since 2003, Breskin has been a senior lecturer at State University of New York Maritime College in the Bronx, NY.  There he examines maritime economics, policy and regulation, American commercial maritime history and intermodal transportation. Since the summer of 2017, he has co-led a month-long study abroad, maritime-centric  program traveling throughout either southern Asia or northern Europe. Breskin arranges many student visits with carriers, shipyard executives, terminal operators, museum curators and regulatory agencies.  Finally, Breskin regularly contributes freelance pieces to several leading websites and publications, including The New York Times.

Breskin brings more than 25 years of experience, a business journalist, to the classroom and publications. He covered international trade and transportation for The Journal of Commerce, then North America’s leading daily newspaper focusing on international business. He wrote about such varied sectors as mining, telecommunications and fashion when based in Toronto as the Canadian correspondent for the Fairchild News Service.  Earlier, he reported on local businesses for daily newspapers in New Jersey and West Virginia.

Breskin also has taught at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point and the prestigious Webb Institute in Glen Cove, where he lectured on maritime history. Both campuses are located on Long Island, NY.

Breskin earned a BA from Columbia University, an MBA in aviation management from Dowling College, and an MS in International Trade and Transportation from SUNY Maritime. He holds an Ordinary Seaman rating.

He has won several academic fellowships. They include a National Endowment for the Humanities award to research maritime history at Mystic Seaport in Mystic, CT and the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship, to study international business and economics at Columbia University.

Breskin lives in Great Neck, NY with his wife Terry and daughter Marti.