It maintains a sixty-vessel fleet of tugboats and barges, employing approximately 400 people at its facilities in Coos Bay, Portland, and Rainier, Oregon; in Long Beach, California; and in Honolulu and Kalaeloa, Hawaii.

"[3] The business began with a single wooden tugboat[4] moving timber rafts along the northwest Pacific coast of the US, from Tillamook Bay north to ports on the Columbia River and Grays Harbor, Washington.

[2] Over the years, SOMAR has lengthened these two tugs, increased the beam, and added new engines and twin screws to gain more working deck space fore and aft.

Sause Bros. changed its base of operations for Hawaii-bound barges in 2002, from Portland to the Port of Longview in Washington, citing proximity to Weyerhauser's dock for loading lumber products, as well as "an excellent working relationship with the ILWU Local 21, with better shipping arrangements.

"[6] By 2009, Sause Bros. moved across the Columbia to Teevin Terminal in Rainier, Oregon, and consolidated its cargo operations there because of multimodal rail and trucking connections.

[12] SOMAR has also been retrofitting the fleet's engines to use ultra-low sulphur fuel to "achieve 80 percent carbon reduction for its Hawaii common carrier service" by the end of 2014.

According to Professional Mariner, company president Dale Sause claimed much improved fuel efficiency: "Ten years ago we built vessels that made 514 miles per gallon per ton when towing," he said.

[18] New technology incorporated a streamlined hull, lateral slats like the wing of an airplane, new hydro-lift foil for steering, and thick, rubbery paint on the barge to weather-seal the Kamakani, doubling the life expectancy to 30 years.

[19][20] The company "transports lumber, plywood, paper, petroleum products, chemicals, bulk commodities, oversized, overweight, or specialty cargoes.

On January 7, 1951, William Sause and three other men entered the cab of a heavy crane aboard a barge on the Skipanon River, a tributary of the Columbia near Astoria, Oregon.

Sause and Harold Holmes were knocked unconscious and then were rescued by Gibson; the fourth man, Charles Sanderson, was trapped in the cab and drowned at the bottom of the river.

[24] A second fatal incident occurred November 1, 1958, when Henry Sause, Jr., then the company's president, and two other men went out in a motor launch to take soundings on a sand bar in the Siletz River.