Riptide

June 27, 2011

Leads:

31 Inside Leads
14 Outside Leads
6 Speed Leads

Attendance:

71 Firms are currently members of Long Beach Execs
46 Firms were present at today’s meeting

Next Meeting:

Date: Monday, July 11, 2011
Location: The Grand
Program Company: Incredible Journey
Program Member: Pat Ellington

Book Signing:

Business: Coast Tickets
Address: 2750 Spring St., Ste. 205
City: LB, CA 90806
When: Monday, June 27 – Monday, July 11
Jackpot: 200.00

Member Focus Talk

Felicia Behar
Coast Tickets
2750 Spring St., Ste. 205, LB
Phone: 562-595-6510
Email: coasttickets@aol.com
Website: http://www.coasttickets.com

Thank you to Felicia Behar for hosting our Guest Speaker today, Art Wong, Assistant Director of Communications, and Public Information Officer for the Port of Long Beach.

For those of you who missed Mr. Wong's presentation yesterday, I've found a wonderful article about the Port of Long Beach with many of the quotes and information coming from Art Wong.

Port History: From Swamp To International Trade Hub

By Jonathan Van Dyke
Staff Writer | Posted: Wednesday, June 22, 2011 12:15 am

For the few folks who still might be around from the turn of the 20th Century, they’d probably tell you there wasn’t much to Long Beach — especially looking out to where the current harbor and Port of Long Beach lie.

    For all intents and purposes, that port started with a muddy swamp, experts said.

    “It’s been a story of dreamers over these last 100 years — not just accepting what would be easy but to go beyond that,” said Art Wong, editor of the book “Port of Long Beach: Celebrating a Centennial.”

    In the late 1880s, there were approximately 800 acres of mud and swamp near the ocean. Over and over again, companies would take a crack at making something of it — trying to make it into a tourist destination for a fledgling city, experts said.

    “They were great at bringing a variety of businesses to the area … but a lot of those enterprises have come and gone over the years,” Wong said.

    In 1897, a watershed moment occurred that would open the door to the beginning concepts of the Port of Long Beach: San Pedro won out over Santa Monica to have the federal government develop a deep-water port and construct a 9-mile breakwater (the breakwater would reach significant milestones in development in 1911, 1930 and finish in 1949). After copious amounts of dredging, a first channel was developed.

    “It began with people who said, ‘Why just San Pedro?’” Wong said. “Why not Long Beach as well? They took the mudflats — the swampy area — and they tried to dredge out the area, hoping to get a shipyard to relocate.”

    By about 1904, a man named Charles H. Windham began to show interest in the land. He was well traveled, working for railroads in Montana and Mexico, mapping the Nicaragua Canal and overseeing banana plantations in Costa Rica.

    He bought the mudflats and established the Los Angeles Dock and Terminal Company. In 1909, a city bond issue raised the money to build Municipal Pier One. On June 24, 1911, there was a grand opening parade for it — lumber was the primary import to the pier, which helped build a city, experts said. The first docking ship, SS laqua, brought lumber.

    “There wasn’t a lot of water, there were no forests here, so they needed to be able to supply the region,” Wong said.

    However, Los Angeles Dock and Terminal Company went bankrupt in 1916 — turning the ongoing dredging over to Long Beach.

    Ironically, Windham, who has been declared the father of the Port of Long Beach by several books and publications, worked as both city manager and mayor of Long Beach even after his company could no longer take the burden of the port.

    “It took real leadership because the port was originally in private hands,” said Steven Erie, author of “Globalizing LA: Trade, Infrastructure and Regional Development.” “It took a while to get into public hands. Charles Windham played an absolutely critical role, but it took a long time. It was a messy creation.”

    Time and again, voters approved bonds that, in turn, improved the port region that began to take shape. On June 25, 1921, this task became easier — oil was discovered in Signal Hill, reshaping the fiscal landscape of the region and its governments.

    “That’s also what allowed the Port of Long Beach to start competing with the Port of Los Angeles,” Erie said. “It was absolutely critical to allow the port to swiftly develop once it got in public hands in the 1920s.”

    In 1925, the Municipal Pier was rebuilt into the Municipal Wharf and construction of Pier A and Pier B began — Pier A opened in 1930.

    The United States Navy designated Long Beach as the homeport of its Pacific Fleet in 1932. The navy eventually bought 105 acres on Terminal Island in 1940 and built its shipyard.

    The oil coverage in the region was even greater than officials and residents initially realized. In 1936, oil was discovered directly underneath the port’s land. Residents were quick to take advantage of the new source of revenue for the city — but it had a cost. As oil was pumped out of the region, the port and the city began to sink.

    The harbor area originally was 20 feet above sea level. It sank four feet by 1945 and by 1947 it was sinking one foot per year (the fastest sinking was in 1951 at two feet per year).

    Oil was both a blessing and a curse, historians said. The good news is that the oil allowed for the residents and city to support the port with more bond money. However, that did not occur until officials got a handle on how to stop the sinking city — all expansion was put on hold until after 1945.

    Eventually, experts figured out how to re-inject water and materials back into the land and stop the sinking. More than 10 billion barrels of water were re-injected by 1987. Another irony — the sinking caused the main channel to be 76 feet deep, allowing it to accommodate the larger ships it would service in the latter part of the century.

    “There was always the good, but there were challenges that came with that — and they always overcame those,” Wong said. “There was almost always a silver lining with everything they did.”

    After 1945, the Port of Long Beach really began to make its move as a national and international player. In 1949, Pier E was completed and Pier B doubled in size.

    “The key thing is, because it was a younger and more upstart port — newer than the Port of Los Angeles — and it had this revenue stream (from oil), it was able to innovate things like the container revolution before Los Angeles did — it forced them to compete,” Erie said. “It really became the low-priced competitor. The Port of Long Beach was more agile and advantageous than the Port of Los Angeles in the 1950s and 1960s.”

    Pier G came online during 1958 and in 1965 there was a massive expansion: Barge loads of rock quarried from offshore of Catalina Island helped form the 310 acres that would become Pier F and Pier J. There were 3.35 million tons of rock and 30 million cubic yards to fill.

    “There was an awful lot of improvements that the feds made during the war,” Erie added.

    In 1962, Malcolm McLean introduced the West Coast to his Sea-Land Services company and the Port of Long Beach never really looked back, Erie said. McLean was using the first containers — which would go on to revolutionize the port industry, allowing operators to quickly unload and re-load products (see Page 17P for story).

    Port of Long Beach officials moved quickly to take advantage of the new technology and outfit the port with what they could for a smooth transition. In 1967, a famous docking

buddy, the iconic Queen Mary, permanently moored at Pier J. Beyond containers, the spotlight of shipping came to the West Coast because of post-World War II trade with the Far East, historians said.

    “This complex is America’s gateway to the Pacific Rim,” Erie said.

    Now, shipments were increasing in cars, toys and new electronics — as well as traditional shipments of lumber.

    “The line that had been so flat over the first 60 years, all of a sudden started to go up, with cargo doubling and tripling,” Wong said.

    Significant amounts of infrastructure sprouted up around the Port of Long Beach between 1948 and the 21st Century. The Gerald Desmond Bridge was completed in 1968 and it connected downtown Long Beach with Terminal Island (it’s now set for a $1 billion rebuild). Giant cranes for container removal were installed in the early 1970s. In 1986, International Transportation Service oversaw the first container terminal in Southern California to open a dockside rail facility for double-stack container trains.

    Things really took off exponentially upon the 2002 completion of the Alameda Corridor, historians said. That allowed container shipments to move swiftly from the port to the transcontinental railways in Los Angeles. It was a $2.4 billion project.

    “To be a port of national significance, it really required they connect to those superior railroads,” Erie said.

    On Sep. 11, 2001, the port was forever changed again, this time with an eye toward not allowing terrorists any ability to disrupt operations. In 2009, a $21 million Command and Control security facility opened on Pier F to fully address those concerns.

    In 2005 port officials began a newer chapter, signing into the Green Port Policy and then in 2006 approving the Clean Air Action Plan. The plans seek to reduce emissions in nearly all facets of business over the next several decades.

    “Long Beach has gone in a different direction,” Erie said. “Greening the ports is a big challenge.

    In 1995, the port was No. 1 in the nation as far as moving containers — moving about 2.6 million TEUs (20-foot container equivalents) that year and employing about 30,000 people. It grew until the recent recession, and has since begun to rebound and perhaps grow again, Wong said.

    “Things come and things go and the port has had to innovate and evolve and continue to try and bring jobs to this region and Long Beach,” he said.

    The challenges are not over, either, experts said.

    “There are really going to be future competitive challenges,” Erie said. “The question is, can it have the success of the 20th Century in the next one?”

Announcements

PRESIDENTS CORNER

 "If you expect respect, you must first show it."

- Bob Hegedus, 2011-2012 EALB President 

CLASSIFICATION POSTINGS:

None at this time.

MEMBERSHIP POSTINGS:

None at this time.

ADVERTISMENTS/WANT ADS

Coast Tickets

Dodgers and Angels Tickets for Sale.  Very Nice Season Seats.  Many Games Below Box Office Price.  Call Felicia at Coast Tickets for details and to purchase at 562-595-6510."

Kauai  Condo For Rent - 2 bed.-2 bath. Deluxe waterfront condo poipu beach-special exec. rates - call Jim Nesmith 562 -900-2230

 La Quinta Patio Home for Ren: 3 Bed, 4 Bath on the golf course patio home for rent.  Call Jim nesmith 562-900-2230.

Board Meeting at a Glance