April 29-May 13, 2014 Section B

2014 Focus On International TradeLong Beach Business Journal Page 1

� By TIFFANY L. RIDER

Editor

T he ports of Long Beach and Los

Angeles on the San Pedro Bay

should expect modest growth in line

with relatively balanced container vol-

umes as imports tick upward and ex-

ports recede slightly.

Exports slowed at the start of 2014 fol-

lowing an unusually high-volume end to

2013 as manufacturers prepared for ear-

lier retail demands for celebrations of the

Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year

varies each year; this year it was January

31 while last year it was on February 10.

Next year it falls on February 18.

March numbers indicate a recovery,

however, with exports at the Port of Los

Angeles (POLA) up 21 percent year to

year and imports surging 41 percent

year to year. The overall containerized

cargo volume increase at the POLA was

34 percent. The Port of Long Beach’s

(POLB) preliminary estimates show

that container traffic in March essen-

tially remained flat year to year, drop-

ping a mere 1.9 percent from 2013.

Both ports may see a slowdown in

exports based on a global economic

slowdown led by China, where the

currency stumbled to record lows in

February. Economists are concerned

that the Yuan is dropping so low that

it may raise the cost of U.S. exports

to China while lowering the cost of

China’s exports to the U.S.

“Exports will be a smaller factor for

growth of trade flows through the port

because of the decelerating pace of

global growth, particularly in China,”

Steven Cochrane, managing director of

Moody’s Analytics, told the Business

Journal. “Export flows should still rise,

but the pace will slow and the compo-

sition of goods shipped out of the ports

may shift somewhat from heavy equip-

ment-related [shipments] to . . . more

toward high-end consumer goods, par-

(Please Continue To Next Page)

Inside Focus On International Trade1 Import, Export Activity Through The San Pedro Bay Ports To Remain Stable In 20144 Acting Executive Director Al Moro Discusses Changes And Growth At The Port Of Long Beach6 Port Of Los Angeles’ Gary Lee Moore Highlights Increased Container Traffic And Investments8 Keeping The Ports Safe Through Awareness, Collaboration And Technology10 Twin Ports Use Sustainability Programs, Grants To Clean Up Regional Environment12 Draft Air Quality Regulations For The South Coast Could Hurt Port Business12 U.S. Chamber’s Murphy To Discuss Trade Policy Priorities At Long Beach Chamber Luncheon13 Mattel CEO Bryan Stockton To Speak At Los Angeles Chamber World Trade Week Breakfast14 LA Harbor Grain Terminal: The Gateway To A World Of Grain15 Clean Air, Clean Trucks And The Pride Of Ownership16 World Trade Week Events Calendar May 2014

Presented By The Los Angeles Area Chamber of CommerceCover Pelicans resting on a barge at sunset at Pier T, Port of Long Beach,

by the Long Beach Business Journal’s Thomas McConvillePublication Prepared by the Long Beach Business Journal in cooperation with the Port of Long Beach, Moffatt & Nichol and the Port of Los Angeles, April 29, 2014

Long Beach Business Journal • lbbusinessjournal.com2599 E. 28th St., Suite 212, Signal Hill, CA 90755 • 562/988-1222

Import, Export Activity Through The San Pedro Bay Ports To Remain Stable In 2014

The San Pedro Bay ports – with the Port of Los Angeles in the foreground and the Port of Long Beach in the center – together are the busiest port complex in the Western Hemisphere andthe eighth busiest by container volume in the world (after, in order, Shanghai; Singapore; Hong Kong; Shenzhen, China; Busan, South Korea; Ningbo, China; and Guangzhou, China).(Photograph courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles)

The 200-acre SSA/Pier A at the Port of Long Beach has 10 gantry cranes. (Long BeachBusiness Journal photograph by Carlos Delgado)

1_INT'LTRADE_2014_Layout 1 4/26/14 7:24 PM Page 1


ticularly as the value of the Chinese

currency is expected to rise slowly in

coming years. China will still grow, and

some of the growth that formerly would

have been expected in China will shift

to other Pacific Rim locations in South-

east Asia or Latin America.”

Even with sluggish exports, the U.S.

economy is poised for growth. That

growth is estimated between 2.5 percent

and 3.5 percent of gross domestic prod-

uct in 2014. Congress postponed eco-

nomic calamities (including the debt

ceiling and budget cuts) until at least the

start of next year, a move that offers

some stability in the market, noted John

Husing, principal with Irvine-based

Economics & Politics, Inc. and an inter-

national trade and logistics economist.

“The economic recovery is clearly ev-

ident in the industrial production num-

bers, and we see nothing to indicate that

these will slow down in the near future,”

according to Ben Hackett, an interna-

tional trade consultant with more than

30 years experience in transportation

and maritime work. “Having said that,

we are keeping an eye on the recent in-

crease in the inventory-to-sales ratio in

the retail sector. This ratio spiked prior

to the recent recession, so it is definitely

a source of concern. The harsh winter

has had a major effect on consumer

spending, consumer confidence and the

Purchasing Mangers’ Index, but all three

appear to be bouncing back now that the

worst of the weather is behind us.”

According to Cochrane, continued

growth in GDP will drive a growing

demand for imported products as busi-

nesses continue investing, consumers

keep buying and the housing market

commands new construction, appli-

ances and furnishings. “Retail sales

will rise slightly faster than overall

GDP growth due to pent-up demand

for durable goods, including autos,

and rising demand for housing-related

goods,” Cochrane said. “These will be

critical factors supporting growth in

import flows.”

East Coast ports are poised to make

every effort to capture market share, ac-

cording to Hackett. However, Husing

said that he does not believe the

Panama Canal is as worrisome as the

Suez Canal, which offers the potential

for U.S. imports from India to surpass

imports from China as the Chinese

economy slows. “That cargo will not

come to the West Coast,” Husing ex-

plained. “It will come to the East Coast,

not that far from the Suez Canal.”

The Suez Canal in Egypt connects

the Mediterranean Sea and Red Sea, al-

lowing exporters from India and South-

east Asia to easily slip between Africa

and Europe to avoid a trip to Cape

Town, South Africa. The availability of

this expeditious path coupled with the

increase in export activity out of India

has “a bigger potential concern than

Panama,” Husing said, noting he has

gone through the Suez and seen “huge

business” happening there.

The POLA and POLB market share

loss from the Panama Canal expansion

project is likely minimal considering the

fact that the San Pedro Bay Ports com-

plex is the top in the nation for container-

ized cargo imports and it has strong

assets in its transportation infrastructure.

Transportation infrastructure supports

stability, Wells Fargo Managing Director

and Senior Economist Mark Vitner ex-

plained. Terminals, rail lines and truck-

ing routes are “all so solidly in place that

to duplicate all of those networks on the

East [Coast] is not workable,” Vitner

told the Business Journal. “We’re not

going to be able to flip the grid and have

massive amounts of containers redistrib-

uted to the East [Coast.”

Cochrane agreed. “Goods ultimately

destined for these areas [on the West

Coast] may not find sufficient cost

savings via the Southeast or Gulf until

there are significant improvements in

rail connections to inland markets,” he

said. “But that competition will ulti-

mately emerge, along with competi-

tion from the Pacific Northwest,

which means the San Pedro Bay Ports

complex will have to continue improv-

ing speed, efficiency and capacity

over the long term.” �

The CMA CGM Orfeo, pictured here in August 2013, is scheduled to arrive in the early evening this Friday, May 2, at the Port of Long Beach. Built in 2008, the Orfeo is about 1,150long and about 138 feet wide. (Photograph courtesy of the Port of Long Beach)

“Goods ultimately destined for these areas [on the West Coast] may not find

sufficient cost savings via the Southeast or Gulf until there are significant

improvements in rail connections to inland markets. But that competition

will ultimately emerge, along with competition from the Pacific Northwest,

which means the San Pedro Bay Ports complex will have to continue

improving speed, efficiency and capacity over the long term.”Steven Cochrane, Managing Director of Moody’s Analytics



� By SAMANTHA MEHLINGER

Staff Writer

T he Port of Long Beach has seen

many changes in the past few

months – from the changing face of the

port itself as massive, multi-billion cap-

ital improvement projects continue, to

port staff relocating to the interim port

headquarters near the Long Beach Air-

port, to changes in leadership and an

expanding staff.

“It’s a pretty exciting time at the Port

of Long Beach,” Acting Executive Di-

rector Al Moro reflected in an interview

with the Business Journal at his new of-

fice overlooking the airport runway.

Investing In InfrastructureAsk Moro what the port’s greatest

challenges and accomplishments are,

and one answer applies to both: the

port’s capital improvement program,

with efforts currently focused on the

Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project

and the Gerald Desmond Bridge Re-

placement Project. Both programs total

about $4.5 billion.

“In 2013, we spent $740 million on

capital improvements. That’s remark-

able,” Moro said, adding that this figure

was about 75 percent of the port’s total

fiscal year budget. “There is no other

port in the U.S. doing that,” he said of

the amount of the port’s infrastructure

investments. “This year we’re budgeted

for $780 million [for capital improve-

ment projects] and we’re going to come

pretty close to [spending] that.”

“The most notable” capital improve-

ment project in terms of its signifi-

cance to the port is the Middle Harbor

project, in Moro’s opinion. “This is the

redevelopment of what were two older

container terminals and combining

them into one,” he said of Piers E and

F, of which shipping line Orient Over-

seas Container Line’s (commonly re-

ferred to as OOCL) local division –

Long Beach Container Terminal

(LBCT) – is a tenant. “It’ll be about

300 acres in size when it’s done,” he

pointed out. “If that terminal alone

were a port . . . it would be something

like the fifth largest in the nation.”

When complete, the terminal may

handle the world’s largest container ves-

sels, Moro said. This ability is signifi-

cant to port business because vessels

able to carry upwards of 15,000 twenty-

foot-equivalent units are becoming in-

creasingly common. To support these

vessels, the port invested in deepening

its water channels and purchased what

Moro called “the world’s largest cranes”

capable of handling large amounts of

cargo. These cranes are undergoing test-

ing by LBCT, Moro said.

Also helping large vessels call on the

Port of Long Beach is the Gerald

Desmond Bridge Replacement Project,

in which the port is replacing the 1960s-

era Gerald Desmond Bridge with a

larger cable main-stayed bridge. Ac-

cording to Moro, the existing bridge’s

inefficiencies are that it has only two

lanes in each direction, lacks any break-

down shoulders and is not high enough

to let large ships pass beneath it.

The new bridge is designed for three

lanes of traffic each way and break-

down lanes on each side. “That’s signif-

icant because if a truck has a problem

today and it stalls or there is an incident,

the bridge basically shuts down,” he

said of the importance of breakdown

lanes to the new bridge’s design.

The new bridge’s height is going to

benefit port operations by allowing

larger vessels to enter the inner harbor,

Moro said, explaining that while the

existing bridge is 157 feet above

water, the new one will be 205 feet

above the water. The new bridge has a

completion date of 2016.

The port also has various railway

projects underway to build more work-

ing and storage tracks and rail support

facilities, Moro said. These capital im-

provement projects are key because the

port’s customers are increasingly reliant

upon rail as larger vessels come into the

port, he explained. “If we don’t have

that rail capacity, they may look for a

port that has more,” Moro said. Rail ex-

pansions are underway both at Middle

Harbor and in the Pier G terminal,

where International Transportation

Service, Inc. is located, he added.

Investing heavily in infrastructure helps

ensure that customers get what they want,

and what Moro most often hears from

customers is that they want reliability.

“They need to know that the infrastruc-

ture at the Port of Long Beach is capable

of moving that cargo at the speed neces-

sary to get to the consumer,” he said.

Leadership ChangesThe port’s search for a permanent ex-

ecutive director is in full swing now that

a national search firm has been hired and

Long Beach Harbor Commissioners Lori

Ann Farrell and Susan E. Anderson Wise

are serving as an oversight committee.

Moro said that the search firm recently

indicated that its candidate screening

process would be complete and that the

harbor commission would receive a list

of candidates by the end of May.

Moro took over as acting executive

director for the port last May, when his

predecessor Chris Lytle resigned to take

the leadership role at the Port of Oak-

land. Since then, there have been other

departures at the POLB, such as that of

Chief Financial Officer Sam Joumblat,

Director of Construction Management

Port of Long Beach Acting Executive Director Al Moro, P.E., has been leading the port since Julyof last year, when then-Executive Director Chris Lytle departed to head the Port of Oakland. Priorto that, Moro served as chief harbor engineer and assistant managing director of engineeringfor the port since 2007. (Photograph by the Long Beach Business Journal’s Thomas McConville)

Acting Executive Director Al Moro DiscussesChanges And Growth At The Port Of Long Beach



Gary Cardamone and Managing Direc-

tor of Environmental Affairs and Plan-

ning Robert Kanter, who retired.

When asked how these changes in

leadership, which have mainly resulted

in appointing existing POLB staff

members as replacements, have af-

fected port operations, Moro replied, “I

think you can just point to what we’re

accomplishing to kind of be the answer

to that,” referencing the robust capital

spending program. Moro added that he

intends to stay on as acting executive di-

rector as long as the harbor commission

deems it necessary and at least until Au-

gust, when he estimated that the perma-

nent executive director would take over.

Other organizational changes are tak-

ing place within the port now that a pro-

fessional consulting group’s suggestions

are being implemented, including the re-

structuring of the engineering bureau so

it better serves large capital improve-

ment projects. The suggestion by PMA

Consultants is resulting in the hiring of

35 additional staff members in the engi-

neering department.

The Coming YearThe Port of Long Beach should expe-

rience a 2 percent to 3.5 percent in-

crease in cargo traffic this year, Moro

said. He noted, however, that the port

has conservatively budgeted for the

lowest likely increase of 2 percent.

This is a less robust growth in cargo

volume compared to 2013. “In 2013, the

port went up percentage-wise by 11.3

percent. That was pretty dramatic,”

Moro said, noting that 2013 was the

third busiest year in the port’s history.

“Some of the cargo growth that we had

in 2013 was a transfer of cargo from the

POLA,” he explained of the double-digit

growth. He did point out, however, that

some growth was related to increasing

exports. “We saw a lot of that new busi-

ness coming into Long Beach as ex-

ports, which is good for the U.S.A.” �

h

The ongoing work onthe Port of Long BeachMiddle Harbor projectis creating about1,000 temporary con-struction jobs annu-ally. Once the projectis completed, the portestimates that it willcreate approximately14,000 permanentjobs in Southern Cali-fornia. (Long BeachBusiness Journal pho-tographs by CarlosDelgado)




Staff Writer

T he Port of Los Angeles (POLA)

began the year on a positive note,

with a 7.5 percent increase in total con-

tainer traffic in the first quarter compared

to the first quarter of 2013. “I would at-

tribute it to wonderful shippers, superior

infrastructure here at the Port of Los An-

geles and a great logistics [system] of

moving cargo in and out of Los Angeles,”

Interim Executive Director Gary Lee

Moore told the Business Journal.

The outlook for the rest of the year is

for positive growth. “We had been pre-

dicting cargo volume increases of 2 to

3 percent in 2014,” Moore said, adding

that industry professionals are forecast-

ing more generous growth. “I was just

in Asia last week and one of the ship-

pers said 3 to 4 percent [cargo volume

growth] while another said 5 to 6 per-

cent,” he stated.

Infrastructure InvestmentsThe Port of Los Angeles continues

to invest in infrastructure improve-

ments for its terminals, through its rail

projects and on its roadways, Moore

said. “We are spending $1 million a

day right now” on these capital im-

provement projects, he emphasized,

calling the spending “a great accom-

plishment.” The total projected spend-

ing on capital improvements this year

is $399.9 million.

One of POLA’s largest projects is

improving the TraPac Terminal at a

cost of $510.3 million. That project,

approved in 2009, involves creating

4,600 linear feet of new wharves,

deepening berths, installing new

cranes, modernizing 50 acres of back-

lands and installing an automated sys-

tem for moving cargo on dock.

Moore called the POLA’s collabora-

tion with TraPac on aspects of the proj-

ect “a true partnership,” explaining

that while the POLA is investing in the

automated cargo movement system’s

infrastructure, TraPac is purchasing the

actual equipment that moves the con-

tainers. The project is partially com-

pleted, with about $85.8 million in

spending planned for this year. Future

portions of the project, including relo-

cating a recycled water line and an ad-

ditional five-acre backland expansion,

are still in the design phase.

Another capital improvement proj-

ect currently underway is the $156.3

million Berth 200 Rail Yard Project, in

which a rail yard is being modernized

for use by Pacific Harbor Line (PHL),

a company that provides rail trans-

portation, maintenance and dispatch-

ing services to the San Pedro Bay

ports. The company is relocating from

its existing location at the TraPac ter-

minal and is being given more rail

space and a new headquarters building

at Berth 200. The majority of this pro-

ject’s budget is funded by federal and

state grants.

With the Berth 200 project, the

POLA aims to help efficiently move

more cargo through the Alameda

Corridor, Moore explained. The

move is mutually beneficial, as the

space PHL is vacating is being con-

verted into an on-dock rail facility

for TraPac. The project is also gener-

ating about 2,000 direct and indirect

jobs, according to the POLA.

Various roadway improvement proj-

ects are also underway throughout the

port area, Moore said. Three major

roadway projects are ongoing, one of

which aims to improve the flow of traf-

fic from the I-110 Freeway ramps at C

Street “by consolidating two closely-

spaced intersections and facilitating

heavy right-turn volumes with free-

flowing turn lanes,” according to the

POLA. This $50 million project also

improves connectivity to Figueroa

Street and Harry Bridges Boulevard.

Another ongoing roadway project in-

volves adding a lane from the State

Route 47 connector to the northbound

I-110 Freeway, extending an off-ramp

and adding lanes at John S. Gibson

Boulevard. The $19.9 million project is

also intended to alleviate traffic conges-

tion and improve freeway connectivity.

Port Of Los Angeles’ Gary Lee Moore HighlightsIncreased Container Traffic And Investments

Port of Los Angeles Interim Executive Director Gary Lee Moore has been leading the port since last November. He said that his priority is to make sure port operations continue movingforward during this transitional period in leadership. (Photograph by the Long Beach Business Journal’s Thomas McConville)



The third roadway project currently

in progress is the $70 million South

Wilmington Grade Separation Project.

“That project is bringing the roadway

across the railroad track to . . . prevent

back ups around our different termi-

nals,” Moore explained. The project

creates grade-separated vehicular ac-

cess to the South Wilmington area,

which should reduce traffic delays and

increase pedestrian safety, according

to the POLA.

One of the port’s most significant

projects in terms of duration and ex-

pense was completed last year – the

$372 million Main Channel Deepen-

ing Project, which resulted in a

deeper harbor to accommodate larger

vessels. “It was a big accomplish-

ment for us to complete that project,”

Arley Baker, senior director of com-

munications for the POLA, told the

Business Journal.

The POLA’s goal for investing in

these capital improvement projects is

to create “a great infrastructure,”

Moore said. “We always need to keep

ahead of other cargo gateways and we

want to remain No.1, so we’re invest-

ing and putting ourselves in good

shape to accommodate the future large

ships and larger cargo volumes that

will be coming,” he explained.

Leadership ChangesA good deal of turnover in leader-

ship at the POLA has occurred in re-

cent months, with Moore stepping in

as interim executive director last No-

vember and with Los Angeles Mayor

Eric Garcetti appointing four new

members to the board of harbor com-

missioners in October. Overall,

Moore said that the leadership transi-

tions are going well.

Moore pointed to the POLA’s in-

creasing cargo volumes to illustrate

that the leadership transition has been

smooth and positive for the port, not-

ing that cargo traffic through the

POLA has increased by 3.8 percent in

the past nine months.

Since stepping into the leadership

role, Moore has met with all of the

port’s customers and taken two trips to

Asia and a trip to South America for

trade and customer relations, he said.

The search for a permanent executive

director is progressing – the deadline

for applications was April 14 and a se-

lection should be made within the next

two months, Moore said.

The harbor commissioners have also

been “fantastic” since stepping into their

roles, Moore said, emphasizing that the

diversity in backgrounds of the commis-

sioners and the amount of hours they are

putting into the job are “impressive.”

The FutureWhile the port is forecasting positive

growth this year, Moore said it is im-

portant to remain proactive in its cus-

tomer relations as major shipping lines

begin to form alliances, such as the one

among CMA-CGM, Mediterranean

Shipping Co. and Maersk Line.

Moore called the trend of vessel shar-

ing and shipping alliances “a new hori-

zon” both for ports and shipping

companies as those companies reevalu-

ate where their vessels call port and

where cargo is routed. He emphasized

that the POLA is “controlling what we

can control” as these alliances form by

investing in infrastructure and improv-

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Staff Writer

T o keep the nation’s largest com-

bined port complex safe, security

officials recognize that they must work

together to constantly keep abreast of

potential threats and to ensure that they

are prepared to efficiently respond to

those threats.

Two leaders in security at the twin

ports – the Port of Long Beach’s

(POLB) Director of Security Randy Par-

sons and Ronald Boyd, interim deputy

executive director of operations at the

Port of Los Angeles (POLA) and chief

of port police – spoke to the Business

Journal about the greatest security chal-

lenges facing the ports today and how

they are working to stay on top of it all.

Challenges And StayingAhead Of Threats

In Parson’s view, one of the most sig-

nificant challenges in maintaining port

security is effectively communicating

with international counterparts. “I think

the greatest challenge as it relates to in-

ternational trade is receiving timely and

accurate information from our trade

partners overseas,” Parsons stated.

Port security personnel collect infor-

mation about vessels leaving foreign

ports for the San Pedro Bay because the

“perimeter of protection” around our

local ports extends to the visiting ves-

sels’ points of origin, Parsons said. In

addition to relying upon foreign entities

to provide information about a vessel,

its cargo and its crew, Parsons said, “the

sharing also has to include information

about any nefarious activity that is ob-

served in those foreign ports.”

Once POLB’s security team receives

information about an incoming vessel,

the team tracks the vessel and observes

its maneuvers, Parsons said. “Monitor-

ing their progress across the ocean as

they approach Long Beach and Los An-

geles is very important,” he stressed.

Suspicious activity is usually apparent

because “international trade is a crea-

ture of habit,” Parsons said. “People

know what boats are supposed to be

carrying, where they are going, how

long they are going to be there and, very

importantly, what routes they take.”

If any of those factors veer from the

norm, if any crewmembers are flagged

in intelligence databases, if the vessel

visits a country that is “of interest from

a national security perspective,” or if

other changes to the vessel occur such as

a change of ownership, that vessel may

be more closely monitored, Parsons said.

“With satellite coverage, radar capa-

bilities and technological advances, it is

pretty easy to track the vessels,” he said,

but emphasized that getting the infor-

mation necessary to determine whether

or not a vessel needs to be more closely

monitored is the real challenge. Having

to do so is “not an every day occur-

rence, but it’s not rare either,” he added.

Another major challenge for port se-

curity is “being prepared for all types of

hazards in a very uncertain atmosphere,

such as we are in today,” Boyd said.

While an obvious threat to the port is

sponsored terrorism, there is a growing

occurrence of what Boyd called “organic

threats,” citing the shooter that recently

terrorized a Los Angeles International

Airport (LAX) terminal and last year’s

Boston Marathon bombing.

“You have these very asymmetric

warfare-type thinkers that are making

attacks on public venues and activities,”

Boyd observed. While he said that the

Port of Los Angeles has “built up capa-

bilities toward active shooters and ter-

rorist-type activities” through “months

of exposure, training and discussions

post-9/11,” he noted, “there always

seems to be that one element that no

one has contemplated or prepared for.”

Boyd is particularly concerned about

the potential for an active shooter event,

similar to the recent one at LAX, to occur

in a cruise ship terminal, pointing out that

these terminals are not unlike those found

in airports. “I know that the City of Long

Beach and the City of Los Angeles have

taken a lot of measures to try to prevent

something like that, including training

and public information and also working

with the cruise line operators,” he said.

To try to stay ahead of new security

threats, Parsons said POLB staff does

something simple – “We watch CNN,”

he said. “What we do is try to be proac-

tive by observing the world’s activities,”

he explained, using the current tensions

between Russia and Ukraine over Rus-

sia’s annexation of Crimea as an exam-

ple. “The first thing we start to think

about is, what kind of vessels do we

have calling from Russia, Ukraine and

Crimea?” If an anomaly occurs on a

vessel crewed by individuals “from a

country that is under strife with a lot of

Keeping The Ports Safe Through Awareness, Collaboration And Technology

Randy Parsons, director of security for the Port of Long Beach, has a long history of security service at the national and local level. After 20 years in the Federal Bureau of Investigations,Parsons became federal security director of the Transportation Security Administration at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and later at the Los Angeles International Airportbefore joining the Port of Long Beach in 2012. (Long Beach Business Journal photograph by Carlos Delgado)



political upheaval or military concerns,”

then the port would keep a closer eye on

that vessel, he explained.

CollaborationThe Ports of Long Beach and Los An-

geles employ and work with multiple

agencies that collaborate to keep the

ports secure.

At the POLB, port security, the Long

Beach Police Department and the Long

Beach Fire Department are all present on

site in the Joint Command Control Cen-

ter (JCCC) at Pier F, Parsons said. “That

is where all three of those agencies sit

down on a daily basis and discuss

what’s going on,” Parsons explained.

“We have regular meetings where we

share information about threats and in-

cidents that have occurred,” he said,

adding that this information pertains to

local, regional, statewide, national and

even international issues.

In addition to its own port police, the

Port of Los Angeles lists the Los Ange-

les Police Department, Los Angeles

County Sheriff ’s Department and Los

Angeles Fire Department, as well as

Long Beach’s security entities, as part of

its security force. Both ports also collab-

orate with state and federal security

agencies such as the California High-

way Patrol, the U.S. Coast Guard and

U.S. Homeland Security. Boyd, who also

chairs the International Association of

Airport and Seaport Police, said that this

level of collaboration among govern-

ment agencies is “at times unheard of.”

Investing In A Secure FutureAs security threats evolve, so does

technology, and both ports continue to

seek opportunities to invest in technol-

ogy that can better improve port safety.

Some time in the next two months, the

Port of Long Beach will roll out a system

called Virtual Port that will enable its se-

curity team to combine datasets from 20

open-source databases to create a real-

time virtual picture of the port complex.

Parsons explained that these databases

contain information about all aspects of

the ports, such

as vessel loca-

tions, water cur-

rents, weather,

the location of safety vehicles or per-

sonnel, the locations of ongoing inci-

dents and more. “Virtual Port stacks

these databases . . . to get a better view

of what is happening,” he said. The sys-

tem may cost as much as $8 million

when completed.

Virtual Port has three main purposes:

daily situational awareness, incident re-

sponse and business recovery, Parsons

said. Situational awareness simply

means knowing where everything

within the port is occurring. The system

aids in incident response by allowing

security officials to identify which se-

curity entities are closest to any occur-

ring incident and prioritize which to

dispatch. The technology may also as-

sist with business recovery by, for ex-

ample, layering datasets of vessel

locations near a fire incident. “That

data layering helps an incident com-

mander know the fire is right next to a

big ship loaded with oil that is right

next to an electrical substation,” Par-

sons, as an example, illustratred.

The Port of Los Angeles is also exam-

ining ways it may enhance its security

efforts, such as by expanding its blue

force tracking capabilities, which use

GPS to track the locations of the vari-

ous entities within the port. Boyd also

hopes to improve upon technological

communication with the public to make

it more two-way, so that the public may

more easily provide security tips or in-

formation to the POLA.

“The more we can shorten the com-

munication gap and the more we can

be responsive with the people we

serve, the better off we will all be,”

Boyd stressed. �

Ronald J. Boyd, interim deputy executive director of operations for the Port of Los Angeles and chief of Los An-geles Port Police, is flanked by three vessels used by Port of Los Angeles security personnel. Pictured from leftare the Maritime Law Enforcement Training Center’s Metal Shark vessel, the port police dive team’s vessel anda Port Police SAFE boat used for patrol. At right, The United States Coast Guard keeps watch as a tugboatguides a vessel in the San Pedro Bay port complex. The Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles have onsitesecurity teams that collaborate with one another as well as state and federal agencies to keep the ports safe.(Photographs by the Long Beach Business Journal’s Thomas McConville)


Long Bea 2014 Focus On International TradeLong Beach Business Journal Page 10

� By TIFFANY L. RIDER

Editor

A s departments of the cities of

Long Beach and Los Angeles, the

twin ports on the San Pedro Bay ac-

tively engage with the surrounding

community through various programs,

many of which provide critical efforts

to clean up the environment.

“We had to learn the hard way

through a clash with the community in

the 2000s that the only way we could

grow is to grow green,” Christopher

Cannon, director of environmental

planning for the Port of Los Angeles

(POLA), told the Business Journal.

Backlash from the region’s commu-

nity groups over significant pollution

coming from both ports resulted in

new efforts by the ports to reduce con-

tributions to poor air and water quality

in the Los Angeles Basin.

To be successful in the community,

the ports must grow business in a sus-

tainable fashion, according to Rick

Cameron, managing director of envi-

ronmental affairs and planning for the

Port of Long Beach (POLB). To do so,

the POLA and the POLB together es-

tablished the San Pedro Bay Ports

Clean Air Action Plan and produced

an annual “green” report card.

“Each year we do an emissions in-

ventory of all port-related sources

that are here,” Cannon explained, not-

ing the report card has been issued

each year since 2005. “It’s a painstak-

ingly detailed effort.” The ports ex-

amine emission cycles, operating

hours, fuel usage and other metrics

for various modes of transportation

including rail, truck and watercraft.

“We’ve had tremendous success in

reductions,” he said.

Cameron echoed, “We never envi-

sioned that we would be so far ahead

of what we had projected.” A signifi-

cant part of that, Cameron said, is

credited to the Clean Trucks Program,

which required all vehicles with pre-

2007 engines to be replaced with

clean motors that emit 80 percent less

air pollution (diesel particulate matter)

than older trucks. The program, which

kicked off in October 2008, reduced

air pollution from harbor trucks by

more than 90 percent by 2012.

Another factor is the transition to

zero-emission cargo handling equip-

ment at both ports, as well as efforts

by the rail lines to upgrade their lo-

comotives to run the least polluting

engines available. Both trucks and

trains enter and exit the ports daily,

running through communities along

the Alameda Corridor and I-710,

Cameron noted. “We are making a

lot of progress,” he said. “Over the

course of the last 10 years, the two

ports and PHL (Pacific Harbor Line)

have worked to modify the 16 loco-

motives that make up the PHL fleet.

About a year ago, PHL upgraded the

engines on the 16 locomotives to a

tier-3 plus engine. It’s the cleanest

locomotive engine available, and

PHL has become the cleanest short

line rail around.”

In addition, construction projects at

both ports must meet best manage-

ment practices in order to minimize

environmental impacts. “We have

been leaders in developing standards

for marine ports,” Cameron said, not-

ing the POLB engineering division de-

veloped standards to implement sus-

tainable design and construction for

future marine terminals. Some of the

now-standard sustainable design and

construction methods include reusing

dredging materials for site fill and

processing and reusing asphalt and

concrete. Both practices reduce the

need for truck trips, meaning less air

pollution and more sustainable devel-

opment, Cameron said.

Moreover, Cannon explained that

the construction equipment is being

replaced with zero-emission technolo-

gies. “Dredging equipment has to be

electric to the greatest extent possi-

ble,” Cannon said. “All barges and

ships that deliver construction related

materials have to comply with our ves-

sel speed reduction program within 40

miles and use low-sulfur fuel 40

miles. . . . Construction equipment

must meet the standards of the Clean

Trucks Program. We require [these] as

part of our sustainable construction

guidelines.”

Ship-to-shore power regulations as

well as other emissions and fuel stan-

dards from the California Air Re-

sources Board now in effect support on-

going efforts to improve air quality.

Cannon described these efforts as a

combination of support from the San

Pedro Bay Ports complex, the business

community and the regulatory commu-

nity. “It has been a collaboration be-

tween the three and I think because of

that collaboration we have been able to

be successful,” he said. “We continue to

monitor developments to push for even

newer technologies to reduce emissions

and [are] working with our partners and

our tenants in the terminals to test new

technologies all the time.”

In addition to new technologies, the

ports continue to make investments in

the community that build on the ports’

sustainability efforts. The POLB

makes those investments through a

community mitigation grant program,

according to Cameron. “The mitiga-

tion grants program came out of the

mitigation for Middle Harbor,” a bil-

lion-dollar project to combine two

aging terminals into a single, sustain-

able and technologically advanced ter-

minal, he said.

The POLB has invested $15 million

in mitigation funding grants to

schools, health care organizations and

greenhouse gas emission reduction

projects outside of the port. One such

project, a van for St. Mary Medical

Center in Long Beach, provides mo-

bile respiratory diagnostic services to

the community. “We can’t buy in-

halers for every person who has

asthma in the region, but we can pro-

vide care and diagnoses to help them

get help,” Cameron said. “That really

has been a successful program.”

Cannon said the POLA has spent

more than $30 million on environ-

mental benefits for the community for

both aesthetic and air mitigation pur-

poses. Projects include building sev-

eral parks in San Pedro,

improvements at Cabrillo Beach, and

upgrades at the Los Angeles Maritime

Museum and at Point Fermin Light-

house. “We continue to spend about

$23 million a year on community ben-

efits,” Cannon said.

Twin Ports Use Sustainability Programs, Grants To Clean Up Regional Environment

As both economic engines and environmental stewards, the ports of Long Beach and LosAngeles work together to ensure the wildlife habitats in the San Pedro Bay are supportedand preserved. The map above shows where such habitats are located within the twinports complex. (Image courtesy of the Port of Los Angeles)


Long Beach Business Journal Page 11

“A big part of what we do is to try

to make the area around the port a

compatible place to live relative to the

port,” he continued. “In other words,

our idea is that part of being sustain-

able and environmentally responsible

is recognizing that you have a com-

mitment to the living environment

around the port, not just stuff coming

out of smokestacks. It’s also quality

of life. Those [ideas] are really impor-

tant to us.”

Quality of life improvement efforts

extend beyond land, and the twin

ports’ water resources action plan also

supports aquatic life in the San Pedro

Bay. “[The action plan’s] purpose is to

work on compliance issues and sedi-

ment quality issues and overall man-

agement practices to make sure that

ships and other entities operating here

in our bay do so in a way that protects

the environment,” Cannon said.

Both the POLA and the POLB

work with port tenants to identify

and control storm water runoff and to

make sure unclean water is not dis-

charged. One control works by using

treatment systems called catch

basins, which are installed at tenant

operations to separate oil from the

water runoff. These catch basins trap

pollutants before they can reach the

bay, Cannon said.

The twin ports’ policies on clean

water have evolved not only to focus

on water improvements within the

port, but also on engaging other stake-

holders with regard to broader issues,

Cameron explained, noting, “We are

part of the larger watershed.” Tenants

at both ports each have a storm water

plan. Port officials work with the ten-

ants, performing site visits to ensure

the tenants are implementing clean

water measures.

To monitor progress, the ports con-

duct a biological survey every five

years or so to look at marine biology

life in the San Pedro Bay. “The abun-

dance and variety has skyrocketed,”

Cameron said of the aquatic life.

“That is a result of the really good

water quality that we implore.” �


2014 Focus On International Trade

E fforts by the South Coast Air Quality

Management District (AQMD) to reg-

ulate the ports of Los Angeles and Long

Beach as stationary entities would increase

the cost of doing business at the ports, ac-

cording to port officials.

The California Air Resources Board

regulates the San Pedro Bay Ports as a mo-

bile source of air pollution, according to

Christopher Cannon, director of environ-

mental planning for the Port of Los Ange-

les. The AQMD does not have authority to

regulate mobile air pollution sources

statewide – only stationary sources, like

power plants, located in the South Coast

region. The South Coast, according to

AQMD maps, includes communities

below the Tehachapi Mountains, the Ange-

les National Forest and the San Bernardino

National Forest; communities above the

Santa Ana and San Jacinto mountain

ranges; and communities extending to

Joshua Tree National Park.

The air quality in the South Coast is the

worst in the United States, Cannon noted.

Since well over half of the air pollution

sources in the region are mobile sources,

the AQMD is stuck trying to figure out

ways to expand regional environmental

regulation by grouping mobile sources to-

gether and calling them a stationary

source. “We don’t think they have the ju-

risdiction,” Cannon said. “It’s going to be

a fight. We can’t have the AQMD put us

under a bubble.”

Under that bubble, Cannon explained, the

port would control everything that operates

at the port or be subject to the AQMD. “We

think that’s crazy because we don’t control

those sources,” Cannon said. “We are a

landlord port. We lease land. We have the

ability to control a little bit what our tenants

do, but we can’t control them the same as if

we owned and operated the equipment. I

understand where [the AQMD] is coming

from, but I vehemently disagree with it.”

The regulations, which are currently in

draft form, provide a backstop to emission

reductions committed to by the ports, ac-

cording to Henry Hogo, assistant deputy

executive officer of science and technology

advancement for the AQMD.

The only requirements the AQMD is

asking of the ports through this regulation,

he said, is to have the ports submit reports

on their annual emissions, which they do

annually to their respective boards. If the

ports’ emissions reductions are on target

with what the AQMD forecasts, the agency

would not seek additional emission reduc-

tions, Hogo said.

“The ports have done a tremendous job

reducing emissions from the sources at

the port,” Henry said, noting that those re-

ductions are reflected in AQMD’s air qual-

ity management plan. “We need an

insurance policy that those reductions are

maintained in the future. In the event

those policies go awry, we are establishing

a mechanism so the ports could continue

[emission reduction efforts].”

Barbara Baird, chief deputy counsel for

the AQMD, said the agency does have au-

thority to regulate the ports when defining

them as indirect sources of pollution. State

law, in statute, allows the AQMD to regulate

indirect sources, which are defined in the

federal Clean Air Act as a facility, building,

structure, installation, real property, road or

highway, which may attract mobile sources

of air pollution. “Our interpretation is that

the port is an indirect source,” she said.

When asked about these rules as being

potentially creating an unfair playing field

among all West Coast ports by regulating

only the Port of Long Beach (POLB) and

the POLA, Baird said, “It would be an un-

fair to other sources in the district if the

port were not regulated.”

The AQMD staff recently closed a

comment period on the draft rule lan-

guage, is reviewing those comments and

is preparing responses to comments. A

draft environmental assessment should be

released soon, as well as any modifica-

tions to the original proposal, according

to Baird. “We anticipate going to our

board in July at this point in time,” she

said. “We may delay that if necessary in

order to solicit additional input.”

POLB Managing Director of Environ-

mental Affairs and Planning Rick

Cameron said there is a different way to

deal with air pollution than AQMD’s ap-

proach. “AQMD proposals would send us

backwards,” he told the Business Journal.

“The right agencies should be regulating

us and there should be a process that does-

n’t just regulate one community or pit one

port against another.”

Other ports across the state and those

outside California are using the fact that

AQMD rules create a more restrictive

business climate as leverage to woo ten-

ants away from the San Pedro Bay Ports

complex, Cannon said. “It is important

that planning for control of emissions of

port-related sources occur statewide so

you have a level playing field,” he said.

“That level of planning really should be

happening nationwide.” �

– Tiffany Rider, Editor


Draft Air Quality Regulations For The South Coast Could

Hurt Port Business� By SAMANTHA MEHLINGER

Staff Writer

“I t’s the best of times and the

worst of times for trade

policy,” according to U.S.

Chamber of Commerce Vice

President of International Af-

fairs John Murphy, who is

speaking at the Long Beach

Area Chamber of Commerce

World Trade Week Luncheon

on May 22.

Murphy gave the Business Journal a

glimpse into his talking points for the lunch-

eon and why he decided to sum them up

with Dickensian flair. Principally, Murphy’s

concerns for the country’s international

trade business hinge on how the United

States Congress acts on two key items:

Trade Promotion Authority and a reautho-

rization of the Export-Import Bank of the

United States.

“One of the issues I plan to put at the fore

is the need for Trade Promotion Authority

(TPA),” Murphy said in a phone interview

with the Business Journal. Trade Promotion

Authority is a legislative policy that gives

the president authority to negotiate interna-

tional trade agreements that Congress may

subsequently approve or disapprove without

amending or filibustering. TPA was created

in 1974 as a way to uncomplicate trade re-

lations. “The issue is that the Constitution

gives to the Congress the authority to regu-

late international commerce, but it gives to

the executive branch the ability to negotiate

with foreign countries,” Murphy explained.

The TPA expired in 1994, was brought

back under George W. Bush’s tenure in the

White House beginning in 2002, ended

prior to his exit in 2007 and was never re-

stored. Since entering office, President

Barack Obama has been working to negoti-

ate two major trade agreements, including

the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11

Pacific Rim countries and the Trans-At-

lantic Trade and Investment Partnership

(TTIP) with the European Union. The prob-

lem is that without TPA, President Obama

cannot ensure that the agreements will be

fast-tracked through Congress.

“It is really important because other gov-

ernments are reluctant to negotiate a trade

agreement with the United States if they

think it is going to later be picked apart by

Congress,” Murphy said of TPA. “They

want to negotiate it once, not once with the

president and then again with the 535 mem-

bers of Congress.”

A bill to establish executive TPA, called

the Bipartisan Congressional

Trade Priorities Act of 2014,

was introduced to Congress in

January. Murphy is concerned

about its prospects of passing,

despite the bill’s bipartisan

sponsorship. “It is a tough

issue for quite a few members

[of Congress] and particularly

for Democrats, and there

seems to be some reluctance to

move forward with it before

the election in November,” he observed.

The U.S. Chamber has been “ramping up”

its advocacy for the legislation because doing

so would help the TPP and TTIP progress,

giving a boost to U.S. businesses and helping

the U.S. remain competitive with other coun-

tries which are negotiating their own trade

agreements, Murphy explained.

“What American business needs right now

is customers,” Murphy said. “If you look

across the Pacific, you’ll find that there are

two billion new middle class customers in

Asia and by 2020 there will be another billion

. . . American companies want to get a piece

of the action,” he emphasized, adding that the

TPP would open the door to that market.

The TTIP could also benefit the U.S. by

lowering its already lenient trade barriers

with the European Union. “The flow of

commerce between the U.S. and the Euro-

pean Union is so large that even eliminating

these relatively low barriers could have a

huge economic benefit,” Murphy stated.

“Already, there is about $1 trillion worth of

trade across the Atlantic every year and on

top of that, about $5 trillion worth of earn-

ings by foreign affiliates . . . In fact, it is es-

timated that about 15 million American and

European jobs depend on this relationship.”

Apart from passing the TPA bill, Murphy

said he is also advocating for Congress to

reauthorize the Export-Import Bank of the

United States (Ex-Im Bank), which pro-

vides trade financing for U.S. exporters.

“Ex-Im’s charter expires on September 30

of this year so Congress needs to pass a bill

to reauthorize it,” Murphy said. “It is very

important for providing finance to U.S.

companies which often are in competition

with companies based elsewhere that enjoy

favorable financing from their own national

export credit agencies. So it’s a big priority

for us as well.”

Approving the TPA Bill and reauthorizing

the Ex-Im Bank are among Murphy’s top pri-

orities for improving U.S. international trade

business and, he stated, represent “the biggest

opportunity to tear down some of the barriers

that stand in the way of U.S. exports.” �

U.S. Chamber’s Murphy ToDiscuss Trade Policy Priorities

At Long Beach Chamber Luncheon



Mattel CEOBryan StocktonTo Speak At L.A.Chamber WorldTrade WeekBreakfast


Staff Writer

B ryan Stockton, CEO and chairman of

toymaker Mattel, Inc., is the keynote

speaker at the Los Angeles Area Chamber

of Commerce’s World Trade Week Kickoff

Breakfast on May 2 at the JW Marriot at

L.A. Live.

As the leader

of a company

e m p l o y i n g

nearly 30,000

workers across

40 countries,

Stockton will

discuss how in-

ternational trade

plays a major

role for his com-

pany. According to talking points for his

World Trade Week speech provided by Mat-

tel, Stockton plans to address how technol-

ogy has changed over the past decade in

ways that enable companies to have un-

precedented communication with cus-

tomers, the media and their stakeholders.

Stockton will emphasize that despite the

changes in digital and social platforms, Mattel

must focus on its core fundamentals, such as

“creative execution and unparalleled innova-

tion.” He is expected to discuss how a chang-

ing business environment interplays with

these fundamentals and how understanding

that has helped fuel the company’s success.

Stockton also serves as chairman of the

company’s board of directors, a role he as-

sumed in January 2013. Mattel has annual

revenues in excess of $6.2 billion, opera-

tions in more than 40 countries, and sells

products in more than 150 countries world-

wide. Stockton, according to a company

statement, is building upon Mattel’s success

over the past decade to align the global or-

ganization and execute the strategic initia-

tives required to be the largest, most

profitable and innovative toy company in

the world, driving sustainable growth and

innovation across the business to leverage

the company’s scale and global structure.

Prior to being named Mattel’s sixth CEO

in early 2012, Stockton was Mattel’s chief

operating officer. He had responsibility for

all of the company’s sales and operations,

which included Mattel Brands, Fisher-

Price, American Girl and Mattel Interna-

tional, as well as the worldwide operations

and corporate responsibility divisions. He

was president of $3 billion Mattel Interna-

tional before 2011, having led and grown

Mattel’s international operations over the

previous seven years.

Stockton joined Mattel in November

2000 as executive vice president of business

planning and development. In that role he

was responsible for identifying and devel-

oping strategic opportunities for the com-

pany, as well as managing all merger and

acquisition activity.

Stockton earned a BS degree with honors

in business from Indiana University and a

Masters of business administration degree

from the Indiana University Graduate School

of Business. He served on the board of Bob

Evans Farms, Inc. from 2006 to August 2012;

held a variety of senior leadership roles on

the Toy Industry Association, including two

years as chairman; was a member of the

board of Mattel Children’s Hospital UCLA

from 2001 to April 2010; served as chairman

of World Trade Week Southern California;

and currently serves as a member of the pres-

ident’s advisory council at Otis College of Art

& Design; UCLA Anderson School Board of

Visitors; and the board of directors of the

2015 Special Olympics World Summer

Games Los Angeles. �

ssional

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” �

s

on



� By MICHAEL GOUGIS

Contributing Writer

W hen it’s dinner time for a cow in the

United Arab Emirates or for a

chicken in China, it is more and more likely

that the food for the critter has come from

the United States.

And 15,000 to 20,000 oceangoing con-

tainers filled with that grain, hay and other

livestock feed comes through the Los Ange-

les Harbor Grain Terminal each year. Every

day, container after container is filled with

grain from the Midwest and hay from across

the West, shipped out to the ports in the Los

Angeles Harbor and makes its way across

the oceans to help feed a hungry world.

The terminal’s destinations are scattered

across the globe, and its products are

equally diverse. That’s not an accident, but

a part of the company’s conservative, solid

business plan, says Dwight Robinson, Los

Angeles Harbor Grain Terminal vice presi-

dent (and also the mayor of Lake Forest in

Orange County).

“We are looking for steady, incremental

growth,” Robinson says. “You’re not trying

to hit a home run, you’re trying to build a

solid business.”

The company was founded in 1958 as

Mortimer & Wallace, and at first specialized

in the export of animal fats and vegetable

oils from Berth 174 in the Port of Los An-

geles. In the 1960s, the company added a

grain elevator to its operations, and loaded

ships with grain, vegetable oil and animal

products. Later that decade, as containerized

shipping became prominent, the company

started “transloading” – moving products

like grain from a rail car into an ocean-going

container. And as containerized shipping

virtually took over trans-oceanic shipping,

the company found that its transloading

services were in great demand.

Today, the company employs about 65

people and operates on revenues of $7 mil-

lion to $10 million annually, Robinson says.

And the backbone of the operation is its

transloading service.

“About 80 percent of our business is

transloading rail cars that are loaded in the

Midwest with agricultural commodities,”

Robinson says. “The other 20 percent of

the business is agricultural products that

are trucked in from the Western United

States, typically no further than about Salt

Lake City. It’s just more economical to

truck it in from that far than to rail it in. But

anything further east of that, or east of

Phoenix, comes in by rail.”

Railroad grain hopper cars dump their

loads into a conveyor system at the two-acre

facility in the “overweight corridor” on

Sepulveda Boulevard, which then loads the

material into the oceangoing containers.

For those commodities that come from the

West, the company offers “cross-docking”

services. That means, literally, taking stuff out

of a truck container, fork-lifting it across the

dock, and placing it into an ocean container.

The company also operates a fleet of 13

trucks that are specially designed to carry

high-weight containers, Robinson says.

“We run the trucks both day and night to

try to fully utilize them. The loaded contain-

ers go in (to the ports) at night more than 90

per cent of the time (to avoid the Pier Pass

fees, which are collected from shipments

that arrive at the ports from 3 a.m. to 6 p.m.)

“Our business is located in the over-

weight corridor, so we use those four-axle

trucks to allow us to fully utilize the over-

weight corridor. Agricultural commodities

are low-margin products, so they’re always

trying to reduce their cost in any way they

can. They want to get as much weight into

the container as they can.”

Much of the material the company han-

dles goes to Asia, where, thanks to the cur-

rent state of the infrastructure in those

emerging environments, the cost of buying

grain from the U.S. is the best bargain in the

world – literally.

“There’s really been a renewed interest in

the export of grain, specifically in contain-

ers, over about the last seven to eight years.

A lot of that has to do with the emerging

middle class in Asia, specifically in China

but throughout Southeast Asia as well,

Malaysia, Thailand and other countries.

They’re really interested in getting Ameri-

can agricultural products that they can use

for feed for their protein sources, such as

chickens, cows and pigs,” Robinson says.

If you’re thinking that China has plenty

of land to grow its own grain, you’re right.

But available geography is only part of the

picture.

“The challenge is (China’s) domestic in-

frastructure,” Robinson says. “If you think

about the United States, we started on one

LA Harbor Grain Terminal: The Gateway To A World Of Grain

Dwight Robinson, vice president of Los Angeles Harbor Grain Terminal, is pictured by railcarsfilled with bales of alfalfa. The alfalfa is grown in the U.S., offloaded from the railcars, putinto containers and shipped to China. (Photograph by the Long Beach Business Journal’sThomas McConville)


coast and we moved all the way across to

the other. So we built a domestic infrastruc-

ture, primarily rail, in the 1800s, to move

goods across the country. (China) doesn’t

have that. Their population centers are pri-

marily on the east coast of the continent.

The land on the interior – they don’t have

the infrastructure to utilize it.

“If you look out 40 or 50 years, they might

develop the infrastructure to more fully utilize

their vast lands in the western part of the

country. But at this point, it’s actually cheaper

for them to purchase American commodities

that are grown in the Midwest, railed to the

West Coast and then shipped to them.”

Another growth area has been the Middle

East, Robinson says.

“There’s been a serious interest in alfalfa

hay in the past five or six years from the

Middle East, primarily the United Arab

Emirates, and also China,” he says. “That’s

primarily a commodity that’s been domi-

nated by the Japanese market. We were

shipping them alfalfa hay, and they were

shipping us back a little bit of Kobe beef!

“That changed because about five or six

years ago, when the United Arab Emirates

changed their political philosophy about

wanting to grow everything in the Middle

East. They started looking at what their costs

really were to produce feed, specifically al-

falfa and hay. They found out that they were

subsidizing water and irrigation to the farms

to such a degree that it was cheaper for them

to buy that hay from the U.S. and Australia

and ship it to them by ocean container. That

had a dramatic impact on the hay industry

on the western part of the United States.”

Such a shift illustrates perfectly why the

company deliberately works with a wide va-

riety of products and consumers.

“We try to keep the business pretty di-

verse. What that means is working with a

variety of commodities and working with a

variety of different destinations. So we try

to make sure that no commodity is more

than 25 percent of our overall business or

that no destination is more than 25 percent

of our overall business,” Robinson says.

“You never know when a natural disaster or

a regulatory change could have a significant

impact on our business.” �

California Cartage and its affiliated companies are one of the first to transition to a green fleet.

California Cartage and its affiliated companies e one of the first to trar

California Cartage and its affiliated companies ansition to a gre one of the first to tr

California Cartage and its affiliated companies een fleet.ansition to a gr

Clean Air, CleanTrucks, And The

Pride Of Ownership

� By MICHAEL GOUGIS

Contributing Writer

L ike a locomotive, a big rig starts its life

on the hard jobs, hauling the biggest

loads from one end of a huge continent (say,

one the size of North America) to the other.

At the end of its lifespan, when that rig (or

locomotive) isn’t really the sort of thing you

want to load to the gunwales and head off to-

ward the other coast, it still can provide use-

ful service as short-distance haulers.

This is a problem for the clean air move-

ment, since trucks like these can stay in

service for decades. And as they are essen-

tially castoffs from the major trucking

firms, they are cheap. This makes them at-

tractive to short-haul drivers and compa-

nies, like those that service the ports of

Los Angeles and Long Beach.

When the Clean Trucks Program started

in 2008, those older polluting trucks were

phased out of port service. But that left the

independent owner-operator between a

rock and a hard place, since new, clean

trucks ran into the six figures.

Several of the drayage companies that

serve the ports – Clean Fleet Systems, Total

Transportation Services, Inc., Progressive

Transportation Services – created a lease-

to-own program to help the drivers who

were operating old, polluting, $5,000 rigs to

purchase new clean trucks.

And the drayage companies say that the

lease-to-own programs have put modern

equipment into the hands of drivers who

could otherwise have not afforded to stay in

the business.

“Most of the people who choose to be in-

dependent owner-operators at the start of

the Clean Trucks Program could not qualify

financially and therefore drayage compa-

nies had to step up and finance these

trucks,” says Gary Mooney, chief executive

officer of Green Fleet Systems.

“All of the independent owner-operators

who started the program (coincidental with

the Ports’ Clean Truck Program) at the end

of 2008 or the beginning of 2009 have

completed their lease term and have either

purchased their truck outright or exercised

their option for Green Fleet to finance the

buyout of their truck over two years at a

nominal interest rate.

“Each of these independent owner-opera-

tors is listed as the registered owner of their

truck. Our lease program was very attractive

for the independent owner-operators as both

the monthly lease rate and buyout option on

the trucks were extremely competitive, com-

pared to the industry in general.”

Similarly, the other drayage companies

have reported turning over the keys to

dozens of independent owner-operators

who now own their own trucks. Some

owners, the companies have said, have

used the lease-to-own programs to pur-

chase several vehicles.

“I believe the program has worked well for

the independent owner-operators who have

chosen to be business owners,” Mooney

says. “Each one of the original group still

contracted with Green Fleet has created an

equity stake in their truck as the current ap-

praised values far exceed the buyout cost.” �



2014 Focus On International Trade2014 Focus On International Trade

World TradeWeek Events

CalendarMay 2014

Calendar Information Provided by the

Los Angeles Area Chamber Of Commerce

www.lachamber.com

May 1

88th Annual World Trade Week

Kickoff Breakfast

7:15-10:30 a.m.

JW Marriott at L.A. LIVE

900 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles

www.worldtradeweek.com

International Dual Career Network –

Ernst & Young LLP

8 a.m.-Noon

Ernst & Young LLP

725 S. Figueroa, Suite 500, Los Angeles

http://events.lachamber.com/default.asp?d

etails=true&cale_id=5225

May 2-4

Global Ties U.S. Discover

Diplomacy Weekend

May 2: Noon-7 p.m.

May 3: 10 a.m.-7:30 p.m.

May 4: 10:30 a.m.-noon

DISCOVER DIPLOMACY

Washington, District of Columbia

[email protected]

May 3

2014 Fulbright Film Festival

10 a.m.-5 p.m.

James Bridges Theater

UCLA School of Theater Film & Television

235 Charles E. Young Dr., Los Angeles

[email protected]

May 5

Panel Discussion: Trade Opportunities

with the Pacific Alliance

10 a.m.-Noon

Los Angeles City Hall, Tom Bradley Tower

200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles

[email protected]

May 6

International Economic Summit

8 a.m.-3 p.m.

Port of Los Angeles

Cruise Terminal at Berth 93

San Pedro, CA 90731

[email protected]

May 7

Go Global: Achieving Your Goals

Presented by the

Port of Long Beach and UPS

8 a.m.-Noon

Grammy Museum

800 W. Olympic Blvd. #245, Los Angeles

[email protected]

Lebanese Cultural Reception

6 p.m.

House of Lebanon Cultural Center

4800 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles

[email protected]

May 8

Getting Global

9-11:30 a.m.

Diamond Bar Center

http://www.ci.diamond-bar.ca.us

1600 Grand Ave., Diamond Bar

[email protected]

May 8

AIR Cargo Day 2014:

2nd Annual Trade Show & Conference

10 a.m.-2 p.m.

The Proud Bird Restaurant, Ballroom

11022 Aviation Blvd., Los Angeles

[email protected]

2014 World Trade Week Luncheon

Meeting: How Mexico's Tax Reform

May Affect Your Business

11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Crowne Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles Harbor

601 S. Palos Verdes, San Pedro

Karoush at [email protected]

May 13

ExporTech-Session 2

7:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

Holiday Inn Torrance

19800 S. Vermont Ave.,Torrance

[email protected]

Automated Export System (AES)

Compliance Seminar

8 a.m.-5 p.m.

Embassy Suites LAX South

1440 E. Imperial Ave., Los Angeles

[email protected]

May 14

Automated Export System (AES)

PcLink Workshop

8-11:30 am

Embassy Suites LAX South

1440 E. Imperial Ave., Los Angeles

[email protected]

May 15

World Trade Conference 2014

8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Radisson Hotel

2200 E. Holt Ave., Ontario

http://media.wix.com/ugd/afcde2_53c3551

041a34e37ab7356be130aad80.pdf

88th Annual World Trade Week

11 a.m.- 5 p.m.

Hilton Long Beach

701 W. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

http://foreigntradeassociation.com/

upcomingevents

[email protected]

May 21

Go Global: Achieving Your Goals

Presented by the

Port of Long Beach and UPS

8 a.m.-Noon

Ontario Convention Center

2000 E. Convention Center Way, Ontario

Joel Perler: [email protected]

XXIII La Jolla 2014 Energy Conference

2:30-6 p.m.

Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines

http://www.hiltonlajollatorreypines.com

10950 N. Torrey Pines Rd., La Jolla

858/453-5560

[email protected]

May 29

FREE Workshop: “Expanding your

Business Through Exports”

8:30-10:30 a.m.

Rancho Santiago

Community College District

www.ranchosantiagocitd.org

2323 N. Broadway, 1st Floor, Santa Ana

714/564-5414

[email protected]

World Trade Week HistoryThe World Trade Week concept was conceived in

1926 and first observed in Southern California in

1927. World Trade Week was founded by Stanley

T. Olafson, then manager of the World Trade De-

partment of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Com-

merce. This occured during a time of isolationism

and under the conditions prevailing during the hey-

day of the restrictive Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act.

By 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

had officially proclaimed World Trade Week a na-

tional observance by the U.S. Government. Initially

created to promote the ports of Los Angeles and

Long Beach, World Trade Week expanded its scope

following World War II to include all facilities and or-

ganizations in the Southern California area involvled

in world trade.

Today, World Trade Week actively promotes the

positive aspects of international trade that are vital

to a strong local and national economy, under the

guidance of founding sponsors the Los Angeles

Area Chamber of Commerce, Los Angeles World

Airports, the Port of Long Beach and the Port of Los

Angeles.– Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce

www.worldtradeweek.com

Cordero To Receive Stanley T. Olafson Award – The

Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce

is presenting the Stanley T. Olafson

Award to Mario Cordero, chairman of

the U.S. Federal Maritime Commis-

sion and a former chair of the Long

Beach Board of Harbor Commission-

ers. The award, established in 1933,

is presented “to an outstanding mem-

ber of the world trade community in

Southern California” and “recognizes those who have

contributed to the advancement of world trade and inter-

national relations above and beyond job requirements.”

Cordero is being honored May 2 at the 88th annual World

Trade Week Kickoff Breakfast.

Thank You AdvertisersThe following companies and public

sector entities made the 2014 Focus

On International Trade possible:

• California Cartage Company

• California State University, Long Beach

• Crowley

• FuturePorts

• Long Beach Container Terminal

• Moffatt & Nichol

• Pacific Crane Maintenance Company

• Pasha Stevedoring & Terminals

• Port of Long Beach

• Port of Los Angeles

• PortTech Los Angeles

• URS– Long Beach Business Journal

Photograph by the Business Journal’s Thomas McConville



April 29-May 13, 2014 Section B

Documents

Transcript of April 29-May 13, 2014 Section B