Louis E. Sola

Louis Ernest Sola (born January 8, 1968) is a Commissioner of the Federal Maritime Commission. Sola currently works under Chairman Daniel B. Maffei and alongside Commissioners Rebecca F. Dye and Carl Bentzel.
On November 15, 2018, Sola was nominated to the Federal Maritime Commission by President Donald Trump and was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 2, 2019. He was sworn into office on January 23, 2019 during the government shutdown for a 5-year term expiring June 30, 2023.
Sola previously served as a Commissioner of the Florida Board of Pilots and chaired the probable cause panel for maritime incidents.
Early life and education.
Louis E. Sola was born in Chicago, IL, and was raised in Goodland, Indiana and the Panama Canal Zone. He received an A.A. in History from Parkland College in 1989; a B.S. in Management from the Nova Southeastern University in 1996; and a M.S. in International Finance from the University of Illinois in 1998. He is a two-time graduate (in Spanish and German) of the Defense Language Institute, Foreign Language Center, located at the Presidio of Monterey, CA.
Early career.
Sola served on the Florida Board of Pilots Commissioners where he was responsible for licensing and regulating harbor pilots. He also served on the probable cause panel for maritime incidents. Previously, he was a Sales Executive with Camper & Nicholsons, Northrop Grumman, and Johnson Yachts. He is a licensed International Ship and Yacht Broker who has sold over 125 new yachts valued over $300 million USD and is also the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Evermarine, a Miami-based yacht brokerage company. Additionally, he served as an Adjunct Professor at Florida State University.
Sola has also served as a consultant for the Inter-American Development Bank during the United States handover of the Panama Canal.
Military career.
Sola served as a Strategic Debriefer for the United States Army Intelligence and Security Command in Munich, Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall by strategically debriefing refugees from Eastern Europe. Subsequently, he served in Counterintelligence and Counter Narcotics missions in Panama with the United States Southern Command, commanded by future Drug Czar General Barry McCaffrey, during the War on Drugs and the fall of Pablo Escobar. Sola earned the US Army Parachutist Badge (Airborne) and was awarded the Humanitarian Service Medal for his efforts during the 1994 Cuban rafter crisis. His accounts of the resilience of the Cuban people where latter recounted in the "Financial Times".
Politics.
Sola previously ran for the United States House of Representatives seat for as a Republican political candidate against Democratic Representative Frederica Wilson. Both candidates were removed from the ballot which was cited as a factor that led to the 2018 U.S. Florida Senate election recount. Sola has publicly stated he will not run for Florida's 26th congressional district in 2020.
On April 30, 2020, the Federal Maritime Commission appointed Commissioner Sola to lead "Fact Finding 30," a federal fact-finding investigation on the impacts of COVID-19 on the cruise industry. This investigation focused on cruise line performance, ticket refund policy, and the economic impacts of the CDC No Sail Order. Sola recommended an "urgent need for ships to start sailing again" due to the economic impacts on the nation's ports, local governments, and small businesses.