If you’ve watched or listened to a national news broadcast recently that discussed the global supply chain backlog, you’ve likely seen or heard University of New Orleans alumnus Gene Seroka.
As the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest cargo shipping port in North America, combined with decades of experience in global logistics and the shipping industry, Seroka has become a high-profile face and voice in the media for explaining the bottleneck that has hampered the delivery of goods to retail stores, warehouses and millions of doorsteps.
Seroka says he doesn’t mind taking on the “spokesperson” mantle for an industry that typically flies under the radar. He laughs when questioned about the number of times he’s been asked some iteration of, “What’s going on with the supply chain?”
“There’s rarely an hour that goes by—whether it’s in the grocery store, here at the office, in the gym,” said Seroka, who has more than 33 years of experience in shipping, global logistics and executive management. “People are genuinely nice about it. They are like, ‘Hey, we saw you on TV or we saw the 6 o’clock news, what’s going on down there?’ So, it’s almost on Main Street now, everyday folks are talking about it.”
The Port of Los Angeles, which handles the daily docking of hundreds of ships delivering millions of containers filled with goods like clothing, bicycles, cars, and computer parts, has experienced a backlog of ships waiting to dock and off load goods.
The port has been operating at record-breaking numbers for more than a year, Seroka said. The average ship that docks loads and unloads about 11,000 plus containers.
“We estimate 2021 will be about 14% more cargo than in 2018, which was our best year ever in 113 years of doing business. So 14% above our best year ever,” Seroka said. “We are averaging now, for 14 consecutive months, about 900,000 container units per month. That used to be one good month in our peak season.”
The docking logjam, one of the many kinks along the supply chain of getting goods to market, is a combination of American companies shipping cargo earlier in an effort to avoid new tariffs and taxes that were pending under the Trump administration and the manifestation of American consumerism during the stay-home era of the COVID-19 pandemic, Seroka says.
“So we’re just buying and buying,” said Seroka, who earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing and an MBA from ɫɫо. “And now we’re finding from retailers and other importers that they are struggling just to keep up with our demand because we’re spending so much money on all these retail goods.”
‘You’re going to meet with the President’
Seroka’s position and expertise earned an invite to the White House in October for a meeting with President Joe Biden.
“My heart was beating a thousand beats a minute; my palms were sweaty. I was so nervous,” Seroka said, laughing as he recalled his time spent in the Roosevelt Conference room waiting to meet Biden. “He was the nicest guy in the world!”
The text requesting his presence in Washington, D.C. arrived around 6:30 a.m. on Oct. 11.
“We need you to be in Washington, tomorrow,” Seroka recalled the text saying.
There was not as much progress being made to clear the docking logjam and cargo ships continued to stack up by the dozens in the waters off the Los Angeles harbor, despite previous meetings with U. S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and the appointment of John Porcari as a special port envoy, Seroka said.
When he arrived in D.C., Seroka was given a rundown of meetings for the following day, a Wednesday.
“I was going to have a roundtable with Secretary Buttigieg and some big CEOs from the retailers with other importers on the Zoom,” Seroka said. “Then they told me, after that, ‘You’re going to meet with the president.’”
That is when his heart went into overdrive, Seroka recalled laughing. That Wednesday, he, along with port envoy Porcari; Willie Adams, the international president of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union; and Mario Cordero, the executive director of the Port of Long Beach, California, were ushered into the Roosevelt Room to await a face-to-face meeting with the president of the United States.
The Roosevelt conference room, which held a table that seated about 14 people, had two doors. One led to the hallway, the other to the Oval Office, Seroka said. Anytime either of the doors opened, which was several times, they would all jump expectantly.
Once, it was a staffer delivering gifts of the official White House chocolate chip cookies that come affixed with the presidential seal.
“After about 15 minutes, the President himself walks in. He shook everybody’s hand and addressed each of us by our first name,” Seroka said. “He took his seat … and we just started talking about the ports, how to fix things.”
It was during that visit that Biden announced his 24/7 initiative to get the ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach, which handle 40% of the nation’s cargo, operating around the clock, seven days a week in an effort to lessen delays.
Seroka also was invited into the Oval Office. Biden showed him a picture of one of his grandson’s re-enacting an iconic photograph of a young John F. Kennedy Jr. seen sitting inside the Resolute Desk during his father’s presidency.
Later, Seroka sat on the front row during the press conference as Biden discussed getting everyone along the supply chain on the same working calendar.
“What an experience,” Seroka said. “On the plane that night, I literally pinched myself. I couldn’t believe it.”
‘ɫɫо gave me this opportunity’
Seroka, who grew up in Slidell, credits the degrees he earned at ɫɫо for helping him succeed in his career.
“I got my marketing degree in ’86, my MBA in ’88 and ɫɫо gave me this opportunity,” Seroka said. “It’s a working-class school; I paid my way through college and everything I’ve done is because of this school.”
Prior to his time at the Port of Los Angeles, Seroka worked for 26 years at the container shipping company American President Lines Limited, which began as a sales support representative in the company’s Cincinnati office in 1988.
During his tenure at the company, Seroka played an integral role in global marketing and corporate strategies and spent 11 years in Asia and the Middle East, before returning stateside in 2010 to become President-Americas for the company’s shipping line in Phoenix. He managed the company’s liner shipping business, including 1,000 employees and was responsible for all commercial, port terminal, intermodal, land transportation and labor activities throughout the region.
In 2014, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti nominated Seroka to lead the Port of Los Angeles, which includes nearly 1,000 employees, foreign and domestic stakeholders and oversight of a $1.7 billion annual budget. Since taking the helm, the port has experienced record-breaking performances.
“I earned this position almost eight years ago … and I can unequivocally state it is because of my education and my experience on the Lakefront that gave me these opportunities.”
Seroka invokes a litany of professors he said were influential during his time at ɫɫо.
“Dr. Jane Cromartie, in the marketing department; Dr. Olof Lundberg who taught computer science; the chair of the marketing department at the time was Dr. Milton Pressley, Dr. Jane Hartman, who taught organizational behavior, and Dr. Tom O’Connor in the marketing department.
“These folks were just unbelievable, they really were great,” Seroka said. “I bet none of these folks remember me, but I remember them.”
Chief Logistics Officer and COVID-19
In March 2020, just as the nation was starting to recognize the enormity of COVID-19, Los Angeles mayor Garcetti tapped Seroka to be the chief logistics officer for the City of Los Angeles (in addition to his port duties) and lead a team of volunteers tasked with securing personal protective equipment for first responders and healthcare workers.
The much-needed but scarce items were in such demand that some healthcare workers were turning to makeshift protective wear, Seroka recalled.
“We had a small hospital in Lakewood, just up the freeway from our port. They were sending out staff to go buy Hefty (garbage) bags because they didn’t have enough of the gowns,” Seroka said. “They would cut holes in the Hefty bags and have the nurses and doctors greet sick patients in a Hefty bag.”
“That was enough for me. We were just running everyday trying to find sources, trying to find companies to manufacture the PPE.”
Seroka and his team were able to secure contracts for the monthly delivery of the all-important N95 protective masks, gowns, gloves and other items by tapping into foreign and domestic contacts.
“This was all volunteer work, and I’m just so proud of what the team has done,” Seroka said.
Seroka’s success has earned him a multitude of awards and recognition, including a lifetime achievement award in June from the Inland Empire Economic Partnership in recognition for decades of leadership and accomplishments in the supply chain, logistics and maritime industry. In 2020, he was named “Executive of the Year,” by Supply Chain Dive for his leadership throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
In December, Seroka will be recognized during a gala in New Jersey as the 2021 winner of the Containerization & Intermodal Institute Connie Award, considered one the most coveted honors in the maritime industry. The award recognizes industry leaders who have made significant contributions to containerization, world trade and the transportation field.
Be visible, be mobile and be durable
In terms of advice, Seroka said he would ask students to consider three things while plotting their careers: Be visible, be mobile and be durable.
Most industries are still relationship based and people want to know who they are working with and they want to see who they are working with, Seroka said.
“Get to know your customer, get to know your professor,” he said. “It’s still a relationship-based industry even if you’re studying at ɫɫо or you’re out in the workforce somewhere, be visible.”
Don’t be afraid to move around the country—or out of the U.S.—if an opportunity presents itself, Seroka said.
“I got the opportunity because of my education to work overseas for more than a decade,” Seroka said. “I made lifelong friends and contacts that I feel so fortunate to have formed. I’ve learned so much from people who are different from me and hopefully they’ve learned something from me because I was different.”
On being durable, Seroka encourages the development of “thick skin.”
“There will be people either on a keyboard or around the corner; people will question you or even criticize you,” Seroka said. “Be as durable as you can because it’s a long race and it doesn’t have to be a sprint.”
