AAPA Leadership Summit Held November 21

AAPA held its 14th Annual Leadership Summit in Alexandria on Thursday, November 21 with Chairman of the Board Tay Yoshitani and a number of technical committee leaders participating. This forum has traditionally been an opportunity for the new AAPA Chairman of the Board to discuss his/her vision, goals and objectives and collaborate with AAPA technical committee leaders toward addressing key industry challenges in year ahead.  

Chairman Yoshitani spoke about the rapidly changing landscape and multitude of challenges facing the public port industry, such as shipping alliances, larger and larger vessels, shifting trade routes, federal policy, etc. He stated that in this environment it is more important than ever to identify and work together in areas and on issues upon which there is commonality among ports. Tay noted that AAPA will play a critical role in bringing together seaports of the Western Hemisphere to share and collaborate on common interests.  

Tay also spoke about having the association and committees focus on increasing member engagement in the many activities and resources the association has to offer. Finally, he challenged committee leaders to identify one critical issue to serve as their as their major focus for the year and to set a goal to be achieved in the coming activity year. 

The summit included a series of presentations, breakout discussions and cross-committee collaboration that focused on the goals articulated by Chairman Yoshitani, and how members can best leverage AAPA resources to help advance common industry issues. 

Committee leaders will be looking at ways to foster collaboration among their committees and to find ways to increase not only member engagement but also the visibility of ongoing committee activities to the general AAPA membership. Our committees are currently addressing a range of timely port issues. If you are not currently a member of a committee, you are encouraged to become involved in one or more of the committees relevant to your work.

American Association of Port Authorities
Asociación Americana de Autoridades Portuarias
1201 Maryland Ave SW, Suite 860, Washington, D.C. 20024
E: info@aapa-ports.org
W: www.aapa-ports.org