Home of Today's Common Sense

Published Brownsville Herald 4/16/2006
On December 26, 2004 the Brownsville Herald published my article “Moving Forward on The Navigation District” where I urged “that in this disaster, we take the opportunity to evaluate and define what the port business is, what the functions are and how we can best evolve as an entity in a niche that will foster community and business growth while operating in an efficient and self sufficient manner.”
It seems that there have been strides made in that direction and some notable accomplishments.
One of the most obvious and perhaps the one that may have the longest impact on the most people is the “re-wetting” of the wetlands along Hwy 48 to Port Isabel. The incessant dust storm seems to have abated for the most part and I see spots of green popping up around the edges of the area. Water birds are poking their heads in the water as well signifying the presence of food and more life returning. I wonder if the delicious crabs will inhabit the place; I can taste them already!
The Port fathers led by Carl Gayman, who spearheaded and continues to work tirelessly in support of the project, can take credit for the great contribution to the quality of life in the area and the economy as well.

The other extraordinary accomplishment was the recruitment of a maritime professional with the stature of Bernard List. Even though he was selected out of a group that included my first cousin, in this new world of NAFTA and CAFTA trade agreements I can only applaud the choice enthusiastically.
Our new Mr. List is not just another pretty face or a politico; he is a ‘for real’ Maritime expert in the things that we need right now to grow our economy even more than it has been since NAFTA was implemented. We got the first insight into that, when he calmed community fears over the “Ports Sale Misinformation” that much of the media and the political hacks spewed at us.
Mr. List has served in Central America with Crawley American, a key liner service in the trade, as Sales Manager Costa Rica and General Manager, Nicaragua. He also served with Sealand Service as Sales Manager Costa Rica. All of this good top level hands on experience has only been possible because of a solid operational foundation in positions such as Account Executive and Senior Account specialist in Sealand’s Florida and the North Carolina offices as well as his position as Director of Logistics of Delmonte’s operations in Costa Rica.
The piece of experience that in my mind defines best what all this is about is when Mr. List became an entrepreneur and developed a liner service between South Florida and the Yucatan which evolved into a successful European style car-passenger ferry in 2003, Maya Lines. His academic paper on the subject is now a widely referred to reference on such operations.
I especially appreciate the effort because in the late 1990’s, I personally developed (pioneered) a long distance car-pax ferry in the Gulf of Mexico, between Port Isabel and Puerto Cortes, Honduras.
All of this becomes especially important in this world of the implementation of CAFTA.
In the last several weeks a survey team from the National Ports and Waterways Institute at the University of New Orleans has been commissioned by an action of the Inter-American Development Bank and visited this area for a number of days to review former ferries’ operational history and potential markets. I was privileged to participate in the interviews which included Mr. List as well as a number of others.
The purpose was to evaluate the feasibility of a “Pan American Marine Highway” founded on Car-Passenger Ferries
To date there has not been a preliminary report of any findings and the team is most notably “closed mouth” but I am very optimistic of the results partly due to Mr. List’s candor regarding his experience with Maya Lines.
In a recent discussion with Mr. List, he identified his priorities as “Developing what we have in the best way possible”. While this obviously refers to port lands, working with the existing tenets to help enhance and grow their businesses was mentioned specifically. Of particular interest in addition to the obvious ship building and repair were the vessel recycling companies. The old “shipbreaking companies” have now evolved into ecologically friendly recyclers and are doing well at it. In the news recently was that our own Esco Marine was just completing a project to make the aircraft carrier Oriskany safe to be sunk, as the largest man made reef, just off shore of Pensacola, Florida on May 17th. They were selected along with Resolve of Florida to do the work because of their past experience. A Web search turned up several comments such as: “Resolve and ESCO were selected by the Navy to perform the difficult preparation. This is no doubt because of Resolve’s previous success at preparing and sinking other ships as reefs….. ESCO’s credentials are equally strong, as it has dismantled over 500 vessels of which approximately 200 were U.S. Navy ships.”
Further suggested in the way of developing new business, while larger businesses would certainly not be overlooked, Mr. List suggested that a personal goal would be to do what he could do to help in the development of local businesses by local businessmen. This is truly a remarkable thought that has yet to be advanced by any of our local politicians who should be in the forefront of such things.
It would appear that the big flies in the ointment are the political wrangling that seems incessant at the Port, with one faction angling to seize power from another faction and manage things around the professional management team in place. Perhaps this coming election will improve the situation; I certainly hope they can learn to work together, forgetting their personal wants and focus on our community needs. Recently Chairman Zavaletta’s suggested, in a recent e-mail that I very much concur with, that when considering the coming vote “were they (incumbants) part of the problem or have they been part of the solution?”
As to the lost $21 million, I am satisfied that Chairman Zavaletta is doing the best that anyone can do to protect community interests, I would however give considerable thought as to how much lobbying we need and who we designate to be our “face” in that lobbying for the future.
All in all I think we can be optimistic.