Happy for now, Hassell digs in

John Hassell gets up a little earlier and sleeps a lot harder these days.

With his first full week as the State Ports Authority's interim chief executive behind him, he has clear plans for keeping the agency afloat until the person he calls "TNG," or "the new guy," arrives.

Hassell moved from SPA board member to the best office at 176 Concord St. within hours on Jan. 21, after Bernard Groseclose Jr. abruptly resigned.

At 59, he promises this is a temporary gig.

"My place in the history of the ports authority is what I'm doing right now," Hassell said in an interview Friday.

But until TNG takes over, he's got goals.

The first, to hold onto and attract every new piece of business possible.

"To do that we just have to be really aggressive and creative on the marketing front, and we're going to have to be really flexible on our rates," he said.

He acknowledges that it's easier to keep customers than to try to win them back. That fits with the ongoing discussions with Maersk Line, the port's biggest customer, which announced its intention to depart after it could not reach a cost-saving arrangement with the SPA and the International Longshoremen's Association.

All three parties are set to meet Monday.

In dealing with customers, Hassell said: "We have to talk to them and ask them where it hurts."

He also takes personal interest in redefining the SPA's cruise terminal, which is more than 40 years old. Hassell wants warehousing and parking upgrades, plus a possible partnership with the city of Charleston.

Though cruise traffic accounts for less than 1 percent of port business and less than 1 percent of tourists, it brings work to tugboats, stevedores, longshoremen and others who work the large pleasure craft like any other ship.

When it comes to cruise business, private profit might surpass the SPA's sometimes, but isn't the agency's mission statement to stimulate the economy?

As Hassell puts it, "We are an enterprise economic development agency for the state of South Carolina."

Hassell, who served as president of the S.C. Maritime Association for 15 years before assuming his new role, worked for the SPA in the 1980s. The late Don Welch, executive director at the time, told Hassell to read the agency's enabling legislation every week. For several weeks, Hassell said, he did.

Now, decades later, he is open to re-evaluating the SPA's public operating model in which the agency owns and operates the terminals. He said the SPA should take the lead on considering new roles for private industry in port management.

"In principle, the ports authority has an operating model created in 1942 and has been using it for the past 70 years," he said. "We shouldn't be afraid to test it."

It's that openness that members of the maritime community appreciate in Hassell. Plus, he's one of them, they say.

Ken Riley, president of ILA Local 1422, has stood largely at odds with the SPA throughout the Maersk tensions, but called Hassell "the single best ambassador for the maritime community and the South Carolina ports."

"When he was president of the maritime association, we all had access," Riley said. "Once he became a board member, that access didn't change."

While interim CEO, Hassell cannot serve on the association's board. He hopes to return to that post after a permanent replacement is found.

Careful not to wade into politics, Hassell sidesteps discussion on recently filed legislation that would change the board's structure. But on the controversial, profit-based SPA employee incentives, he speaks freely.

"I don't think bonus incentive plans have a place in the public sector," said Hassell, who added that merit-based bonuses for individuals make sense. The SPA board is working now to amend the incentive structure and base it on volume and market-share growth.

Since Hassell took the reins, the agency also instituted the first-ever customer service training for its operations personnel. The logic, he said, is that those employees deal with customers on the front lines and can learn what the agency can do to help business.

Hassell has spent his first nine days in office learning from department heads, reassuring customers and meeting with state lawmakers. He arrives at 8:30 a.m. and stays at work "until people stop coming to the office."

He will earn 1/12 of a $225,000 annual salary for each month he spends as interim chief. He hopes the search committee will dredge up someone younger and with more experience over the next three to six months.

"People say, 'Are you having fun yet?' " Hassell said. "You know, I am. I think it's the kind of challenge anyone would want to take on — for a short time."