New director faced with setting stalled Port of Baltimore back on course

“What we can do is we can get back to a position where day in and day out, we’re conducting the business of the Port of Baltimore and that the cargo levels have returned to normal, or pre-bridge incident,” he said.

Ports plan for catastrophic events, but not like this one, Daniels said.

“It’s changed the entire flow of people and cargo north and south through the city,” he said. “It’s going to impacts how the port conducts its operations.”

The port, which includes 33 private marine terminals and six publicly owned terminals, had an annual economic impact of about $70 billion.

Daniels said the long-term, 20-year master vision plan that the port administration is beginning work on is needed now more than ever. It will be accompanied by a more flexible strategic business plan to be completed this year. The plans will take into account work to recover from the shutdown and ways to maintain and grow business during what could be years for a new bridge over the Patapsco to be built.

Long-term goals include boosting container cargo business at Seagirt Marine Terminal in partnership with operator PortsAmerica Chesapeake and at Tradepoint Atlantic in Sparrows Point, as well as increasing roll-on/roll-off and bulk cargo business. The port also is looking for ways to fit additional cruise lines into the schedule of the single berth at the port’s cruise terminal.

“The more tons we move through here, the more containers we move through, the more hours there are for the longshoremen, the more distribution centers that are developed, and ultimately more jobs are created,” Daniels said.

Baltimore’s port has built in geographic advantages because of its accessibility to markets in the mid-Atlantic and Midwest. It has been the nation’s top port in terms of imports and exports of autos, light trucks and “roll-on/roll-off” equipment for 13 straight years.

Daniels succeeds former Maryland Port Administration Director William P. Doyle, who abruptly resigned last June.

Daniels said he was attracted to the port’s top job, in part because it “has one of the best reputations in the maritime industry. It’s a hardworking, close-knit waterfront with a very strong labor component.”

Some of his confidence about Baltimore port’s future comes from his experiences with ports that have dealt with adversity.

He served as executive director and CEO at the Mississippi Port Authority in Gulfport several years after Hurricane Katrina hit the area and wiped out port operations. The rebuilding had stalled when he arrived in 2013, but he was able to complete the project five years later. And he directed Port Everglades, the world’s third busiest cruise home port, during the pandemic when cruises were canceled. The port used that down time to go after and sign up luxury cruises and came out of the pandemic in a stronger position.

“You expect working in the port industry — everything we do here is large — when things go wrong, they go very wrong,” Daniels said. “But never did I expect that something like this could go wrong.”