A new breed of ranger rides the Alaskan seas these days, deputized by voters to protect state waterways against harm from cruise ships. The rangers, marine engineers from Crowley Maritime Corp., conduct onboard inspections that take them into small spaces above deck and below water ­– making it difficult to record their findings on the go.

Rangers tried using laptops and cameras but found them too bulky to carry on their rounds; smartphones were portable, but forced them to transfer data to a PC before they could compile and submit their reports to Alaskan officials. It took an AT&T cloud-based mobile forms solution to create a sea change for Crowley’s Ocean Rangers, improving the ease, accuracy and speed of creating and submitting field reports.