Port of New Orleans CEO Gary LaGrange to Retire Next Year
Longtime Port of New Orleans CEO Gary LaGrange — credited with steering the port through numerous disasters, natural and man-made, as well as economic downturns — will retire next April .
Chief Operating Officer Brandy Christian is expected to be named his replacement.
LaGrange has headed the port since 2001 and been in the maritime industry for 40 years.
Under LaGrange, the port invested more than $500 million in infrastructure improvements, including new container, intermodal, cruise and refrigerated terminals. The port generated record revenue in each of the past four years. In 2015, the port topped the 500,000 20-foot equivalent unit mark for the first time. TEU is the measure used to describe a containership’s capacity. The port also topped 1 million cruise passengers for the second year in a row.
“But I think the one thing that trumps them all is [Hurricane] Katrina,” LaGrange said. “Being able to get the port back in business 12 days after is probably the single biggest thing, considering the fact that the city was basically vacant and empty at the time.”
The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Maritime Administration brought in several ships to serve as temporary housing for port workers. LaGrange said he will never forget completing the aid application at the Port of West St. Mary, where he once worked and had set up shop temporarily, doing the work on a cellphone he borrowed from “somebody from Beaumont.”
If he wanted to, LaGrange could divide his time in New Orleans by disasters. He started work Sept. 10, 2001, a day before the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York. Four years later, Katrina struck. In 2010, a catastrophic blowout at a BP well spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.
“The unique thing about Gary is that throughout all that, he was always able to move the port forward. It wasn’t just recovery and getting back to the base line,” World Trade Center Chairman Eddy Hayes said. “He was always able to advance the ball.”
In 2002, for example, the Bush administration placed massive tariffs on steel imports. At the time, steel imports accounted for 37% of the port’s revenue.
LaGrange said that challenge launched the port’s diversification strategy, which has been the key to the facility’s growth.
Instead of placing all its eggs in one or two baskets, the port has a multipronged strategy that includes container cargos, the largest cold storage facility in the Northern Hemisphere, recruiting cruise ships and building up the industrial real estate base, he said.
World Trade Center CEO Dominik Knoll said LaGrange’s passion, vision, knowledge and hard work have been evident in his work at the port and in the community. That passion helped get the port open just days after Katrina and reassure shippers that the port still was in business after the BP Macondo disaster, Knoll said.
In announcing LaGrange’s retirement, the port said it expects Christian to be its next CEO.
Christian joined the Port of New Orleans as chief operating officer in January 2015. She had been vice president of strategy and business development at the Port of San Diego, the nation’s fourth-largest cargo port. Christian helped the Port of San Diego secure major accounts for the cruise and cargo business lines and helped cut costs and improve operational processes.
“I am honored to be the first woman to head the port in its 120-year history,” Christian said in an e-mail. “I feel fortunate to work for an organization that recognizes hard work and progressive ideas. I am humbled to be a role model not only for my own daughter, but other female and minority staff and community partners that work hard and contribute to our success every day.”
