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I n today’s increasingly complex geopolitical environment and amid competing domestic and scale of the work that ports and supporting organizations do is anything but simple. From their 17th-century origins as colonial outposts, U.S. ports have evolved into much more than gateways priorities, de ning the scope for trade. Today, they function as economic engines helping to drive regional development, increasing the competitiveness and the assets of their communities. Consequently, today’s port leaders must be experts not only in maritime operations, supply chain activities, and logistics, but also in economic development, public nance, and strategic planning. One compelling example is the Port of Cleveland (formally known as the Cleveland-Cuyahoga County Port Authority), a key Great Lakes hub and the only full-service container port on Lake Erie. According to its 2025 Impact Report , released in summer 2026, the agency nanced projects with nearly $339.3 million in bond funding, supporting projects with a combined value of $781.7 million. Records also show the port authority approved bond nancing for several additional regional projects, including a mixed-use campus adjacent to the Cleveland Browns’ practice facility in suburban Berea, about a dozen miles from downtown Cleveland. Issuing bonds is an important community development nancing tool for ports; state law grants them that authority. But a port’s direct economic impact on its community still primarily stems from the infrastructure the port develops and maintains, along with the employment and logistics activity generated by port operations and the supply chains they support. Development nance complements these core functions by facilitating
A key challenge facing U.S. ports today is navigating evolving government regulations and tariffs.
RONEL BORNER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, EAST REGION, CENTERPOINT PROPERTIES
writes Geraldine Knatz, Ph.D., in a chapter of Rodrigue’s ports textbook, Port Economics, Management and Policy . “The chief executive of a port, whether the position is called executive director or CEO, sometimes both, must juggle competing demands from customers, board members, stakeholders, staff, and, in some cases, one or more overseeing governmental authorities,” writes Knatz, professor of the Practice of Policy and Engineering, a joint appointment between the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy and the Viterbi School of Engineering. Knatz writes from experience: She served as the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles from 2006 to 2014. She also was the managing director of the Port of Long Beach. Among the diverse quali cations required of port directors, Knatz recognizes the need for political savvy: “While a port executive might share some common characteristics with a private-sector CEO position, such as prestige and salary, the growing public awareness and participation in port activities, coupled with greater diversity among port board membership, has resulted in increased politicization of the port director’s position,” she writes. For manufacturers and their logistics providers—who are important forces in regional economies themselves—an understanding of the multiple functions of ports is essential as they navigate the political processes that help determine how ports can best meet their needs.
investments that fuel broader regional economic growth. Despite the outsized economic in uence of ports nationwide—achieved through both the nancing tools they deploy and their own operations— the communities they serve may often overlook their contributions. According to port expert Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Ph.D., this oversight occurs in part because the fundamental nature of port-related economic activity has changed over time. “If you looked at ports a century ago, they generated a great deal of direct economic impact,” says Rodrigue, professor, Department of Maritime Business Administration, Texas A&M University-Galveston. “Everything was centered around the ports, and most of the communities were very well aware [of their impact]. They saw it.” BROADENING THEIR IMPACT AND SERVING MULTIPLE FUNCTIONS Today, globalization has extended supply chains far beyond the waterfront. “We have record traf c gures, but ports have more and more of a dif cult time linking their activity with their local communities,” Rodrigue says. Containers arriving at a port are often transferred almost immediately to destinations hundreds or even thousands of miles away, he points out, making a port’s local economic contribution less apparent. “Port directors work in a complex and constantly changing environment,”
August 2026 • Inbound Logistics 37
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