Port of Long Beach Executive Director Is Retiring
After 14 years as the executive director at the Port of Long Beach, Richard Steinke announced on April 5 that he will be retiring in six months.
“I have accomplished most of what I set out to do at the port,” Steinke said in a statement. “I’m pleased that I can move on knowing that I leave the port a better place than when I came on board.”
The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners, which acts as a the port’s governing board, said it would immediately search for a new executive director with Steinke helping the board make an easy transition and assisting with the search for his replacement. Steinke leaves his post at the end of September.
Steinke came to the port in 2000 after serving five years as airport property officer at Stapleton International Airport in his native Denver.Under his leadership as head of the second-largest port in the United States, Steinke helped convert the 500-acre Long Beach Naval Complex on Terminal Island, which closed in 1997, into shipping terminals that helped the port with its expansion plans. Hanjin Shipping Co. leased 375 acres of the 500 acres for 25 years in September 2002 for $40 million a year. The terminal is now one of the largest container terminals in the United States.Steinke put the port on a greener path by working with the Port of Los Angeles to implement the Clean Trucks Program in 2008, which requires haulers to use vehicles that pollute less. He also worked to develop the $1 billion Middle Harbor Redevelopment Project, which will add more terminals to the port when it is finished, and helped to get a $950 million project underway recently to replace the Gerald Desmond Bridge, which connects Long Beach to Terminal Island. It is a major transportation thoroughfare for trucks and other vehicles serving the port.
“Dick has been instrumental in developing the Portof Long Beach into one of the top seaports in the world,” said Nick Sramek, president of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners. “He led the port out of the recent recession, keeping it strong financially, while guiding our major modernization and environmental projects.”—Deborah Belgum
