Barbara Melvin takes over SC Ports from Jim Newsome

Barbara Melvin became president and CEO of the South Carolina State Ports Authority on Friday, taking the top job at the agency where she has worked for more than two decades.

Melvin, who had been chief operating officer, is the first woman to lead a top 10 U.S. operating container port, according to the authority, known as SC Ports. She succeeds Jim Newsome, who led the port for 13 years. Newsome retired Thursday, ABC News 4 reported.

“I am truly honored to lead our amazing team at SC Ports, who I have had the privilege of working with over the past two decades,” Melvin said in a statement. “Alongside our partners, we will work together to achieve operational excellence, deliver new infrastructure and grow our cargo base in support of our customers and our communities.”

She is the sixth leader in the authority’s history and will run a team of nearly 1,000 people who move freight through the Port of Charleston, Inland Port Greer and Inland Port Dillon, SC Ports said.

A planned handoff

The change has been in the works since October. Newsome announced his retirement Oct. 18 during his annual State of the Port address and said Melvin would replace him, The Post and Courier reported. The authority’s board approved her appointment unanimously that month, FreightWaves reported.

“I’ve had a good run at this,” Newsome told The Post and Courier at the time. “You know, CEOs have a shelf life and I’ve got some other things I want to do. The port will be in fantastic hands going forward, and I hope to help them out in any way that I can.”

Newsome, who joined the authority as president and CEO in 2009, will stay on as an adviser for a year, the newspaper reported.

“He led a major turnaround effort when he joined in 2009, assuring S.C. ports continues to flourish as a top 10 U.S. container port,” board Chairman Bill Stern said in October, according to The Post and Courier.

Melvin will be paid $500,000 a year, plus health, retirement and other benefits, the newspaper reported in October. Newsome was to make $585,000 in his final year.

The Post and Courier noted that ports run under the landlord business model, such as the Port of Los Angeles, have had women as their top executives. SC Ports owns and operates its terminals.

Two decades at the port

Melvin joined the authority in 1998, according to The Post and Courier and FreightWaves. She was named vice president of operations and terminals in 2015, FreightWaves reported. SC Ports says she has been chief operating officer since 2018; The Post and Courier reported her promotion to that job came in 2019.

As chief operating officer, she oversaw daily port operations and led major infrastructure projects such as the Charleston Harbor deepening, FreightWaves reported. She also led efforts to win funding for the deepening, according to The Post and Courier.

When she was named in October, Melvin said she was ready for the job.

“I am grateful and I am ready,” she said, according to FreightWaves.

What she inherits

Melvin takes over after 15 straight months of record cargo volumes, handled amid great supply chain challenges, according to SC Ports.

Several big projects are underway. The Charleston Harbor deepening project is on track to be finished this fall, which would make Charleston the deepest harbor on the East Coast at 52 feet, the authority said. An expansion of Inland Port Greer is underway, and SC Ports is launching its own pool of truck chassis, called the SMART Pool.

With support from the Legislature, the authority is also developing the Navy Base Intermodal Facility, a near-dock rail yard in North Charleston designed to move goods to and from the port by train, SC Ports said.

Those projects follow the 2021 opening of the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in North Charleston, which the authority has called the first new container terminal in the United States since 2009.

“Barbara Melvin will undoubtedly continue to build on the great success and growth at South Carolina Ports,” Stern said Friday. “Her leadership will assure SC Ports continues to flourish as a top 10 U.S. container port and as a great economic engine for our state.”

SC Ports says port operations create 1 in 10 jobs in South Carolina.

“With the skill and talent of our team, the solid experience from our maritime community, the guidance from our Board of Directors, and the support from our elected, business and community leaders, SC Ports will continue to grow, bringing jobs and investments to our state,” Melvin said.