Meet Miguel Reyes, Sr. Maritime Trade Account Manager

Monday, 29 June 2009
Contact: Marguerite Elicone

Voices of the Port
In between a sea of camouflage-painted Hummers and 150-foot long windmill towers on the Port’s Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal sits the nondescript warehouse office of the Port of San Diego Trade Development department. Deals are made in this office that bring international contracts to the Port and millions of dollars in economic input to the region.

Miguel Reyes is a Senior Maritime Trade Account Manager who works in this four-person office, sealing overseas deals and marketing maritime tenants. He started in 2002, and since then has helped the Port secure business with big name auto, shipping and cargo companies.

The Port’s Maritime Trade Development department is the sales force for the Port. It is constantly seeking new business for the Port’s two marine cargo terminals – one each in San Diego and National City. In addition, the department seeks new business for maritime tenants such as the cold storage facility at Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal, and the stevedoring companies that are responsible for loading and unloading cargo.

As Senior Maritime Trade Account Manager, Reyes attends industry meetings and trade shows and helps organize trade missions for the Port.

“One of the main challenges of this position is to educate potential customers about the Port of San Diego,” he said. “Customers always hear about Los Angeles and Long Beach, and don’t realize that shipping to the Port of San Diego can save them money in fuel and transportation costs.”

Reyes’ job is to make sure potential customers throughout the United States, Latin America, Asia and Europe are aware of the Port’s facilities, capabilities and experience.

Some of the Port’s success stories include convincing Eastern Car Liner (ECL), Ltd., a Japanese car carrier, to call on San Diego. Due to a lot of persistence, the Trade team was able to convince ECL to add San Diego to their port rotation. They have been coming here since 2004. Another big name was Dole Fresh Fruit. The company that currently ships 185 million bananas a month to the Port’s Tenth Avenue Marine Terminal previously shipped to Los Angeles. In 2006, Mazda switched from importing cars to Port Hueneme to the Port of San Diego, bringing 100,000 additional vehicles a year to the National City Marine Terminal.

Last year, Reyes traveled with former commissioner Sylvia Rios, Ron Popham, the Port’s Assistant Vice President for Maritime; Ed Plant, president of San Diego Refrigerated Services and representatives from the San Diego Hispanic Chamber of Commerce to Mexico. The purpose of the trip was to seek new avocado cargo for the Port of San Diego, Reyes said.

“This is a good time to partner with Mexico because they are currently looking for other options for transporting avocados to the United States.”

The trade mission laid the groundwork for future avocado imports for the Port of San Diego. Currently the growers are trucking the shipments to U.S. border towns like Nogales and Laredo in Texas. Shipping the avocados provides a safer and less expensive method of transport.

While there, the group visited Uruapan, Michoacan, considered to be the avocado capital of the world. The area is home to 28 USDA-certified avocado packing houses and 4,000 avocado growers.

Other trade missions that Reyes has participated in included trips to Brazil and Chile. Those visits resulted in additional shipments of steel and other project cargo.

Next month, Chairman Stephen Cushman, Commissioner Robert “Dukie” Valderrama, Ron Popham and Reyes will travel to Brazil, Chile and Ecuador to conduct meetings with current and potential customers. Trade missions are essential to reinforce relationships with cargo stakeholders and the participation of port commissioners is really appreciated by overseas companies. As part of a Fee-for-Service agreement that the Port has with the World Trade Center (WTC) in San Diego, the WTC will be assisting in the coordination, planning of customer events and logistics of this trip.

Reyes’ favorite part of his job is dealing with the customers, which contributes to the Port’s reputation of excellent service.

“It’s exciting to secure accounts after working for months on them,” he said. “A big part of this job is based on relationships with our customers. These relationships create opportunities.”

Securing new accounts in today’s economic climate is often difficult for many ports throughout the world.

“The Port of San Diego isn’t alone in this,” Reyes said. “However, one positive aspect is that the slowdown has caused many customers to take a second look at how they do business. This slowdown has created new possibilities for us because customers are realizing they don’t need the giant container ports. We’ve got the lay-down area, we’ve got the expertise and we can save the customer money.”

The Port has seen a decrease in automobiles and construction cargo such as lumber and sand. Despite those decreases, it has been able to make up the losses with other cargo. Wind energy components continue to do well as do shipments of steel, bananas and industrial cargo that is often used for power plants. Frequent military offloads also help boost revenue.

Reyes is optimistic that the construction-related cargo will pick up soon. “The industry is cyclical. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again,” he said.

In the meantime, Reyes and the rest of the Trade Development department will continue to do what they do best – marketing the Port and its maritime tenants and promising first-class service.

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