Mar. 29--NORFOLK -- The Virginia Port Authority's newly hired executive director said he views a new privately owned marine terminal in Portsmouth more as a way of spreading the word about Hampton Roads than as a competitive threat.
In his first formal address to the local maritime community, at a Virginia Maritime Association breakfast at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott on Wednesday, Jerry A. Bridges said APM Terminals' decision to open shop on the Elizabeth River this July should be seen as a good thing for the Port Authority's terminals.
"When any private company comes in and invests over half a billion dollars, it speaks volumes to how they see the viability of our location," said Bridges, who took the authority's helm on Feb. 5. "Some people look at this and say, this is a threat ... but I don't see it that way."
APM Terminals, a sister company to the Maersk shipping line giant, will open the $500 million facility -- the first major U.S. terminal built completely with private dollars. That shows that a major industry player sees Hampton Roads as ripe for growth, he said.
"Virginia is the place to be," Bridges said. "We all know that, Maersk knows that, but now Copenhagen (the location of Maersk's headquarters in Denmark) knows that, and now the world knows that based on what APM is doing."
Still, it's clear there will be intense competition between the state cargo facilities and APM Terminals.
Bridges has acknowledged as much, saying the three Port Authority terminals he oversees -- in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Newport News -- will go toe to toe with Maersk for container business.
"We will compete at every level with APM Terminals," he said in a February interview. "We have some tools to work with, and we'll sharpen our teeth. Competition will make us better as we embark on a new era."
And it will indeed be a new era. After all, APM Terminals is building a huge operation -- one that will eventually be able to handle cargo volume at one facility that's as much as all three local state-owned terminals handled combined in 2006.
Maersk, the port's largest existing customer, plans to shift all its local container traffic to its own terminal instead of the state-owned ones. On top of that, Maersk has bought out P&O Nedlloyd, another large port customer, with those containers also expected to go through its new terminal.
The Port Authority, preparing for the forthcoming competition, has been trying to become more efficient through many new technology and capital improvements, and is locking in long-term deals with existing shipping lines.
But Bridges emphasized Wednesday that the Virginia Port Authority's role is a broad one -- promoting cargo flow through all terminals in Virginia, not merely the state-owned ones.
Under state law, the authority's role is, among other things, "to foster and stimulate the commerce of the ports of the Commonwealth," and to "promote the shipment of goods and cargoes through the ports."
"The mission of the Port Authority is to bring economic vitality to the region," Bridges said. "They didn't say we have to do it all by ourselves. Because at the end of the day, we all benefit when this business grows."
Other key areas that Bridges plans to focus on include:
Deploying new technology to the port's operation. "People think technology is about computers," he said. "But for me technology is also about the cranes, the trucks and the containers in a lot of cases ...There are various technologies that can help track content and containers throughout the logistics supply chain, so we're going to be deploying those types of developments."
Adding diversity to the workplaces at both the authority and to Virginia International Terminals, a port operating company Bridges oversees as part of his official duties. That means racial, gender and age diversity, he said.
"We need to make sure we have diversity in our contracting and employment opportunities, and in the mix of people we have just doing things for us," he said. "That's the right thing to do."
Having the authority become ISO 9000 certified, for quality management excellence, and ISO 14001 certified, for environmental management.
"Taking care of the environment is good business over all," Bridges said. "We're not in the business of destroying the environment for the sake of the economy. We're in the business of helping the economy through good stewardship of the environment."
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