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A New Captain Takes Command of TTI's Center for Ports and Waterways · Thinking Transportation: Engaging Conversations about Transportation Innovations

• 0:14
  Allan Rutter: Howdy, everyone. Welcome to Thinking Transportation.
• 0:17
  Allan Rutter: Conversations about how we get ourselves and the stuff we need from one place to another.
• 0:23
  Allan Rutter: I'm Allan Rutter with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute.
• 0:28
  Allan Rutter: One quirk about the English language is that one word can have different meanings.
• 0:33
  Allan Rutter: The word ship, as a verb, means to send something somewhere else.
• 0:38
  Allan Rutter: As a noun, it means a vessel larger than a boat.
• 0:42
  Allan Rutter: Port can mean one of those slots or openings on your computer.
• 0:46
  Allan Rutter: It can mean a dark red, sweet wine.
• 0:49
  Allan Rutter: And it can mean a harbor where ships load and unload.
• 0:53
  Allan Rutter: Today, we'll be talking to two of my colleagues that know all about ships and ports and freight, as our Center for Ports and Waterways is transitioning to new leadership.
• 1:06
  Allan Rutter: So in 1995, the Texas legislature created the Center for Ports and Waterways at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute to conduct benefits-oriented research for the maritime industry.
• 1:20
  Allan Rutter: For the past 23 years, the center, which we'll refer to as CPW, has been led by Jim Kruse, who's been a frequent guest on this podcast.
• 1:29
  Allan Rutter: Effective September 8th, 2025, TTI has named Vince Mantero, the new director of the center.
• 1:37
  Allan Rutter: With more than 25 years of experience in maritime and freight policy, planning and program management, Mantero joins TTI from the U.S.
• 1:44
  Allan Rutter: Department of Transportation Maritime Administration, where he served as director of the Office of Ports and Waterways Planning.
• 1:51
  Allan Rutter: So today we're pleased to commemorate the passing of the CPW baton by talking to both of these very impressive gentlemen.
• 1:58
  Allan Rutter: Welcome to you both.
• 2:00
  Jim Kruse: Thank you.
• 2:00
  Jim Kruse: It's a pleasure to be here.
• 2:02
  Vince Mantero: Thank you, Allan.
• 2:02
  Vince Mantero: Pleasure.
• 2:04
  Allan Rutter: So to get started, let's talk a little bit about how you came to be attracted to maritime issues.
• 2:09
  Allan Rutter: Jim, before you came to TTI, you had been a director of the Port of Brownsville.
• 2:14
  Allan Rutter: What was your journey into the world of ports and ships?
• 2:18
  Jim Kruse: I tell people I came in through the back door.
• 2:21
  Jim Kruse: I went to the Port of Brownsville initially to be the director of administration.
• 2:24
  Jim Kruse: A few months after I started, the commission had a problem with the port director and they asked him to leave.
• 2:31
  Jim Kruse: They came to me and said, Would you be willing to try this job as an interim CEO?
• 2:35
  Jim Kruse: And I said, Sure, why not?
• 2:36
  Jim Kruse: And six months later, they did a full search and named me the permanent CEO of the Port of Brownsville.
• 2:42
  Jim Kruse: So I tell people I came in through the back door by doing that.
• 2:44
  Jim Kruse: But once I got started, I found out it's just an interesting industry.
• 2:47
  Jim Kruse: So many things going on, people from all over the world.
• 2:50
  Jim Kruse: There's never any shortage of things to study and learn about.
• 2:53
  Jim Kruse: So it was very fascinating.
• 2:55
  Jim Kruse: And when I left the port, I did a little bit of consulting work for Foster Wheeler.
• 2:59
  Jim Kruse: I tell people I was the port director and I wanted to go straight, but that was too hard, so I became a consultant.
• 3:04
  Jim Kruse: But once I finished the consulting gig, I came to TTI, and that's where I've been for the last 23 years.
• 3:09
  Allan Rutter: So, Vince, what was your journey to waterborne freight?
• 3:12
  Allan Rutter: How'd you come to be part of the maritime administration?
• 3:16
  Vince Mantero: Yeah, thanks again, Allan.
• 3:17
  Vince Mantero: I think Jim and I may have gone through the same back door, maybe on a different side of the house.
• 3:22
  Vince Mantero: But actually, my background is, I'm a city planner and I started off in a transportation agency, regional transportation agency, and started doing freight planning there.
• 3:32
  Vince Mantero: I think it's because no one else wanted to do it.
• 3:34
  Vince Mantero: And I just really kind of fell in love with it.
• 3:37
  Vince Mantero: I love the intermodal aspect of it.
• 3:39
  Vince Mantero: And then soon thereafter went to the port of New York/ New Jersey.
• 3:42
  Vince Mantero: That's really when I got my first taste into maritime and ports and just really loved it.
• 3:49
  Vince Mantero: Ended up working as a consultant, working on various statewide freight plans and regional plans, and then went back to federal service with Federal Highway Administration and again on the intermodal side, what they would call surface transportation.
• 4:05
  Vince Mantero: Arguably, I would say waterborne is surface as well.
• 4:08
  Vince Mantero: But at Federal Highway, it was kind of just really on the roadway, which was very valuable and very helpful.
• 4:15
  Vince Mantero: But [maritime] came a calling and kind of went back to my roots and spent about five years there, led the Marine Highway Program over there, did a number of research studies, got to interact with several port colleagues I knew way back when from the port authority days.
• 4:31
  Vince Mantero: So, in some ways, I'm back home and then coming over to TTI was just the next logical step.
• 4:39
  Allan Rutter: So let's talk a little bit about why the legislature created the center 30 years ago.
• 4:44
  Allan Rutter: With the recently permitted Texas Gulf Link deepwater port off of Freeport, Texas has or will have 12 deepwater ports along the Texas coast.
• 4:55
  Allan Rutter: Each of these ports is very different in terms of activity, types of ships, types of commodities, economic impact.
• 5:03
  Allan Rutter: We'll talk a little bit about some of those Texas ports to help our listeners understand about what port activity means to the state.
• 5:10
  Allan Rutter: Let's start by talking about Texas's two biggest ports in terms of tonnage and activity, the Port of Houston and the Port of Corpus Christi.
• 5:19
  Allan Rutter: What's distinctive about those two ports and how do they matter to Texas?
• 5:25
  Jim Kruse: Well, the Port of Houston is a massive conglomeration of marine-related businesses.
• 5:30
  Jim Kruse: People think of the Port of Houston as a port authority, but in reality, it's 200 individual private corporations operating on one ship channel.
• 5:38
  Jim Kruse: And so it's a very busy place.
• 5:40
  Jim Kruse: The Port of Houston actually handles 70% of all container traffic in the Gulf.
• 5:45
  Jim Kruse: It all comes through Houston.
• 5:46
  Jim Kruse: Plus, they are one of the world's largest petrochemical complexes.
• 5:50
  Jim Kruse: So there's a lot of petroleum going through there, a lot of petrochemical products, a lot of intermediate things that move on to another stage later on.
• 5:56
  Jim Kruse: But the reason it's so important to Texas is because oil is our backbone, has been for decades.
• 6:02
  Jim Kruse: And the oil and petrochemical industry create a lot of jobs, a lot of activity in the area.
• 6:06
  Jim Kruse: And for the average " citizen," you have the stuff coming in through the containers that is very important to the economy in general.
• 6:14
  Jim Kruse: People don't realize this, but the leading importers of containers in the United States are Walmart, Target, Toyota, Home Depot.
• 6:22
  Jim Kruse: So you're getting these things through areas like the Port of Houston that allow you to buy things in the store that you want to buy.
• 6:28
  Jim Kruse: Then you go to Corpus Christi.
• 6:30
  Jim Kruse: Corpus Christi is the nation's largest exporter of petroleum.
• 6:34
  Jim Kruse: They have built huge pipelines down to Corpus and they're just moving stuff out faster.
• 6:38
  Jim Kruse: They're having to expand faster than they plan to, but it's working out real well for them.
• 6:43
  Allan Rutter: So those petrochemical products, it's as much liquid petroleum and L& G, liquid natural gas.
• 6:51
  Allan Rutter: It's the more raw products while Houston is more finished chemical manufacturing.
• 6:58
  Jim Kruse: Well, it's interesting.
• 6:58
  Jim Kruse: Houston handles all stages of the process.
• 7:01
  Jim Kruse: But one of the things they've become a center for is the export of plastic resin pellets, which is what you use to make anything out of plastic.
• 7:08
  Jim Kruse: And so they have quite a business going there.
• 7:09
  Jim Kruse: I think they're the nation's leader in that area of exports as well.
• 7:12
  Jim Kruse: So it's interesting.
• 7:14
  Allan Rutter: Yeah, I think a lot of that has to do with the Permian basin activity, the large amount of natural gas, and the fact that there's so much of it, it becomes less expensive.
• 7:24
  Allan Rutter: Natural gas becomes a feedstock for that chemical process, and it becomes a fuel for making the plants work.
• 7:32
  Jim Kruse: That's correct.
• 7:33
  Jim Kruse: And we talk about LNG, liquefied natural gas, as a new fuel that produces fewer emissions than the traditional diesel and oil.
• 7:41
  Jim Kruse: Well, the area from Baton Rouge down to Corpus Christi is just loaded with LNG export facilities.
• 7:47
  Jim Kruse: And so it's a major industry now in Texas.
• 7:50
  Allan Rutter: So Vince, tell us a little bit about Houston and Corpus Christi.
• 7:54
  Vince Mantero: Well, Jim did such an incredible job in summarizing...
• 7:57
  Vince Mantero: I think the one thing that I would add, especially when it comes to Corpus Christi, I think a lot of people don't realize is, the Maritime Administration, Department of Defense have designated 17 seaports around the country as strategic seaports.
• 8:12
  Vince Mantero: And these are really important for military deployment.
• 8:16
  Vince Mantero: And Corpus Christi is one of them.
• 8:18
  Vince Mantero: And I think when you look at it from not only the energy side, from just basically the economic side, we can't forget the importance of these ports, especially Corpus Christi, to national defense and military deployment.
• 8:32
  Vince Mantero: And that's kind of the perfect storm of why these two ports are so important for the economy, for energy, as well as national defense.
• 8:43
  Allan Rutter: So when we talk about Houston-- one of the things that the port will be sure to talk about themselves as the nation's largest port in terms of tonnage-- Houston, because of the businesses that Jim was talking about, all of those aggregate together with an amazing amount of tonnage.
• 9:01
  Allan Rutter: Talk a little bit about Houston's position within the ports in the national network.
• 9:06
  Jim Kruse: Well, Houston is a leading port in foreign exports in the country.
• 9:10
  Jim Kruse: And it's interesting, people always think about ports like Los Angeles, Long Beach, and all the trucks and all the press it gets.
• 9:16
  Jim Kruse: But in reality, if you put together Los Angeles, Long Beach, and New York, you would still have fewer vessel calls than what we see in Houston in an average year.
• 9:25
  Jim Kruse: The difference is a lot of Houston's traffic is petroleum and liquid product, which moves by pipeline.
• 9:30
  Jim Kruse: So you don't see trucks just jamming up the entire area.
• 9:33
  Jim Kruse: Whereas in Los Angeles, Long Beach, and New York, you have a lot of containers which all have to move by truck.
• 9:38
  Jim Kruse: So it's a different type of system.
• 9:40
  Allan Rutter: So it's land side, but most of it's buried.
• 9:43
  Jim Kruse: Yes, this is true.
• 9:46
  Allan Rutter: So Vince, when you were talking about the importance of military activity in some of the ports, that's a good segue into talking about some of the other deep water ports in the state.
• 9:56
  Allan Rutter: Specifically, as we think about going from north to south, Beaumont is also one of those military export ports, right?
• 10:05
  Vince Mantero: Yeah, so Beaumont and Port Arthur are the other two strategic seaports.
• 10:10
  Vince Mantero: So again, Texas has three out of 17.
• 10:13
  Vince Mantero: So again, an emphasis on how important Texas ports are to our national defense and readiness.
• 10:20
  Allan Rutter: What else is different about Beaumont and Port Arthur?
• 10:24
  Vince Mantero: So I think one thing to emphasize with Beaumont and Port Arthur beyond the strategic seaports is similar a little bit to I think maybe Corpus, is they also move a great deal of refined petroleum, chemicals, even industrial cargo.
• 10:40
  Vince Mantero: Those are critical for Texas and the nation.
• 10:44
  Vince Mantero: I think what's important for both Beaumont and Port Arthur is this kind of dual use for military mobility and commercial trade, as hard enough as it is to run a port for the commercial trade part of it, but then you add the military component on it.
• 10:58
  Vince Mantero: And so they have a distinct set of uses that makes them very different.
• 11:03
  Allan Rutter: Jim, anything to add?
• 11:05
  Jim Kruse: Beaumont actually handles more military cargo than any other port in the country.
• 11:09
  Jim Kruse: And so Beaumont is a key player in the national defense for the country.
• 11:14
  Allan Rutter: Yeah, so much of what happens on both Fort Bliss and Fort Cavasos out of Central Texas moves out of Beaumont.
• 11:22
  Vince Mantero: Yes.
• 11:23
  Allan Rutter: Let's also talk about Galveston and Freeport, both very different ports, but unusual sorts of activity and very unique within the Texas port network.
• 11:33
  Jim Kruse: Well, Galveston should be really considered as a cruise port.
• 11:37
  Jim Kruse: I mean, it has industrial activity, but it is the nation's fourth largest cruise port.
• 11:42
  Jim Kruse: And it's growing.
• 11:43
  Jim Kruse: It's actually moving up the ladder.
• 11:45
  Jim Kruse: So it's an incredibly busy area for the cruise business.
• 11:49
  Jim Kruse: When you move to Freeport, Freeport's claim to fame has been traditionally banana imports and then RORO, which is roll-on-roll-off cargoes-- trucks, tractors, cars, and so forth.
• 12:00
  Jim Kruse: And they've had quite a bit of business for some of the major equipment manufacturers, as well as people like Volkswagen and regular cars, so to speak, for the typical user.
• 12:10
  Allan Rutter: I think Freeport is also, as you had mentioned, this liquefied natural gas.
• 12:15
  Allan Rutter: They have a lot of that really major manufacturing that's happening there.
• 12:19
  Allan Rutter: And that's one of those places where a lot of the pipelines are delivering that natural gas where it gets liquefied.
• 12:26
  Jim Kruse: Well, I should have mentioned it, but Dow Chemical has a huge...
• 12:29
  Jim Kruse: in fact, Freeport really is Dow in many respects.
• 12:32
  Jim Kruse: But it has a huge facility down there, and they do use the port.
• 12:36
  Jim Kruse: They're not on port property, but they use the port assets to ship in and out.
• 12:40
  Allan Rutter: Vince, what else about Freeport and Galveston?
• 12:43
  Vince Mantero: The only thing I would add is also we hear a lot lately about what we call the maritime industrial base, right?
• 12:51
  Vince Mantero: So it's not just the ports, but everything that goes into making a port run-- could be manufacturing, it could be shipbuilding.
• 12:59
  Vince Mantero: And we're starting to see several of these ports kind of going into that key part of the maritime industrial base.
• 13:06
  Vince Mantero: Galveston is really into the ship repair and again offshore support operations.
• 13:14
  Vince Mantero: So beyond just that port influence of the in-and - out of the movement of cargo, the support facilities and the support for the port environment is absolutely critical.
• 13:24
  Vince Mantero: And you're starting to see several of these ports, whether it's in Galveston or others, really begin to step up and know their role there.
• 13:32
  Vince Mantero: And I think that's one thing that I would point out about Galveston.
• 13:35
  Vince Mantero: And obviously with Freeport, I think Freeport-- and Jim can correct me-- is a great pressure valve at times for Houston.
• 13:42
  Vince Mantero: It can maybe absorb some of that growth.
• 13:45
  Vince Mantero: It has its own strengths when it comes to LNG, petrochemicals, even containerized trade.
• 13:51
  Vince Mantero: So I think they just balance each other really, really well.
• 13:54
  Allan Rutter: So one of the things that you had mentioned there, Vince, was this maritime industrial base.
• 13:59
  Allan Rutter: That gets me thinking about Brownsville.
• 14:01
  Allan Rutter: The Port of Brownsville has traditionally had an awful lot of activity taking apart ships.
• 14:09
  Allan Rutter: Let's talk a little bit about what happens at the Port of Brownsville.
• 14:12
  Jim Kruse: Well, now you're back to my old stomping grounds.
• 14:15
  Allan Rutter: There you go.
• 14:15
  Allan Rutter: That's your home base.
• 14:17
  Jim Kruse: There is a major ship builder there, Amfels, and they've changed hands several times.
• 14:21
  Jim Kruse: So I'm not sure what their latest name is, but basically it's Amfels.
• 14:24
  Jim Kruse: And they build a lot of very difficult to construct vessels.
• 14:28
  Jim Kruse: They also work on offshore equipment and so forth.
• 14:30
  Jim Kruse: Brownsville is the nation's leading shipbreaking port, and there's a lot of stuff that goes down there, a lot of old military vessels and so forth that aren't needed anymore.
• 14:38
  Jim Kruse: They take them down there and break them apart and sell the stuff they break apart.
• 14:42
  Allan Rutter: So "shipbreaking" is the term that you used?
• 14:45
  Jim Kruse: Yes.
• 14:46
  Allan Rutter: I'm gonna have to make a note of that one.
• 14:47
  Allan Rutter: That's that's good to that's good to keep in your pocket.
• 14:50
  Jim Kruse: Well, it's a major industry in Brownsville.
• 14:52
  Jim Kruse: There are very large yards with a lot of people working on it.
• 14:55
  Jim Kruse: So it's interesting.
• 14:56
  Allan Rutter: What about Brownsville takes advantage of or serves the activity coming across the border?
• 15:02
  Allan Rutter: Is there port activity that's border related?
• 15:06
  Jim Kruse: Well, we used to say, and I guess they still say today, that Brownsville is Mexico's northernmost port.
• 15:11
  Jim Kruse: I would say probably 90% of Brownsville's business directly relates to Mexico.
• 15:17
  Jim Kruse: The steel trade is all related to the manufacturing complex in Monterey and Saltiu in that area.
• 15:24
  Jim Kruse: You have a lot of the jet fuel and things like that doing business with Pemex in Mexico.
• 15:30
  Jim Kruse: But I guess it flows both ways...
• 15:32
  Jim Kruse: but definitely it's Mexican related, and most of the port's clients are Mexican.
• 15:36
  Allan Rutter: So we've talked a little bit about when we were talking about Houston, but let's contrast Texas ports, the entire sort of port complex across the coast.
• 15:45
  Allan Rutter: What role does it play within the national port system?
• 15:48
  Allan Rutter: And then how do you contrast our Gulf Coast ports with those on the east and west coast?
• 15:55
  Vince Mantero: So again, coming from my first really maritime experience was at the Port of New York and New Jersey.
• 16:01
  Vince Mantero: It was obviously ports such as LA and Long Beach and the Port of New York/ New Jersey are critical ports to the nation.
• 16:09
  Vince Mantero: What's interesting with them is that they're largely import ports.
• 16:13
  Vince Mantero: They have basically maybe a three to four to one ratio of imports to exports.
• 16:19
  Vince Mantero: The difference is the Texas ports are largely exports.
• 16:22
  Vince Mantero: And that's really what drives the economy.
• 16:26
  Vince Mantero: And I've always kind of thought about it that the coastal ports and east and west coasts may be the front door to international trade, but the engine is really out of Texas.
• 16:36
  Vince Mantero: And I think that's one thing that really differentiates the Texas ports-- especially the larger ports in Houston and Corpus Christi-- is that drive to export, which is very different from other coastal ports.
• 16:48
  Jim Kruse: We're talking about the amount of tonnage that ports handle too.
• 16:50
  Jim Kruse: Texas has three of the nation's top 10 tonnage ports.
• 16:54
  Jim Kruse: If you expand it to the top 20, we have five in Texas alone.
• 16:58
  Jim Kruse: Texas handles more than 25% of the entire nation's marine cargo.
• 17:03
  Jim Kruse: And so it is a major, major player on the national scene.
• 17:07
  Allan Rutter: Well, that shows the importance that, given how much of that activity is Texas related, that's got to be have something to do with those exports out of the Texas economy.
• 17:17
  Allan Rutter: It's not simply about Texas being a waste station of things coming through us, although some of the export grains and other kinds of products are, but it's also exports that are manufactured or added value in Texas.
• 17:32
  Jim Kruse: Especially when you're talking about petroleum and the petrochemical types of things, that's started here and quite often finished here.
• 17:38
  Jim Kruse: It is a difference from other ports like Los Angeles, which ships a large percentage of other stuff into the interior of the United States.
• 17:44
  Jim Kruse: New York does the same sort of thing into the Eastern Seaboard.
• 17:47
  Jim Kruse: But in Houston, or the ports in Texas, typically handle stuff produced in Texas that needs to get to the world market and brings in stuff that Texas needs, specifically Texas needs from the world market.
• 17:59
  Vince Mantero: The only other thing that I would add to that is that Texas ports are so well positioned, not only from what we would call maybe the deep water ports, but they're connected to the waterway.
• 18:09
  Vince Mantero: And so there's a direct marine highway into our inland markets, unlike maybe some of our coasts.
• 18:18
  Vince Mantero: But even if you come in from the Midwestern states, you're always going to be able to have direct access on our marine highways into our Texas ports, which really adds it and gives it some added value to the whole resiliency of not only the marine system, but the entire freight transportation system.
• 18:38
  Allan Rutter: Which is a good way to segue into the other name of the Center for Ports and Waterways, which is waterways.
• 18:44
  Allan Rutter: Tell our listeners about what we mean by that and what that entails.
• 18:50
  Allan Rutter: Navigable waterways-- are we talking canals, rivers, all of that stuff?
• 18:55
  Allan Rutter: Jim, why don't you get us started talking about the waterways part of the Center for Ports and Waterways?
• 19:02
  Jim Kruse: Well, I should back up one step and say when you're talking about marine transportation, you can typically divide it into two large categories.
• 19:09
  Jim Kruse: One is what we call "brown water," which is the barge traffic that moves down the rivers and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
• 19:15
  Jim Kruse: The rest of it is "blue water," which is ocean- going-- goes all over the globe.
• 19:19
  Jim Kruse: When you talk about waterways, we're really trying to talk about that brown water component.
• 19:24
  Jim Kruse: It's the barge traffic moving up and down the Mississippi River, the Ohio River, the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.
• 19:30
  Jim Kruse: So it's a major, major player in the country.
• 19:33
  Jim Kruse: And in fact, if you look at grain exports, it's that waterway system that makes our farmers competitive on the world market.
• 19:39
  Jim Kruse: They can get things down to the ocean far cheaper than many other countries can.
• 19:48
  Allan Rutter: Vince, this is kinda your neck of the woods, where you just came from. Help our guys understand a little more about the role of waterways.
• 19:52
  Vince Mantero: Yeah, thanks for that.
• 19:53
  Vince Mantero: It's uh again, I managed the marine highway program when I was at the Maritime Administration.
• 19:58
  Vince Mantero: And this has always been near and dear to my heart.
• 20:01
  Vince Mantero: It's...
• 20:02
  Vince Mantero: Our view is always well, how can we increase kind of usage of our waterways?
• 20:08
  Vince Mantero: And I think Jim hit on some great points in terms of the importance of our waterways to key commodities.
• 20:15
  Vince Mantero: It could be agricultural, chemicals, energy, even construction equipment.
• 20:21
  Vince Mantero: And I think people sometimes forget that just one barge can take 60 or 70 trucks off the road; and try to imagine if those barges went away, all of that would be on our roadways.
• 20:33
  Vince Mantero: And I think it's one of those that's a bit out of sight, out of mind at times.
• 20:37
  Vince Mantero: And I think that's one thing that when I was at the Maritime Administration, and I know that the Center for Ports and Waterways, when I was looking at TTI and I know it's Jim's work, is making sure that is visible, the importance of these waterways.
• 20:52
  Vince Mantero: I kind of say that the ports are critical, but while they're the gateways, the waterways are the arteries.
• 21:01
  Vince Mantero: And you need to have both to work properly.
• 21:04
  Vince Mantero: The more we can not only encourage the visibility of our waterways, but find ways to increase the usage of our waterways and help maybe take some of these trucks off the road, I think we're all a little bit better.
• 21:17
  Allan Rutter: Yeah, I was just attending a supply chain agility workshop that PTI held the past couple of days.
• 21:24
  Allan Rutter: And some of the speakers were making the case about agricultural exports and how grain exporters out of the United States compete with folks in Brazil or Ukraine in Europe.
• 21:34
  Allan Rutter: And so much of the benefit or the competitive advantage that U.S.
• 21:40
  Allan Rutter: agricultural has is the reliability, the relative low cost of that transportation that makes U.S.
• 21:50
  Allan Rutter: grains competitive on a world marketplace.
• 21:53
  Vince Mantero: That's exactly right.
• 21:54
  Vince Mantero: I mean, you know, when people look at our transportation system on a map, they see all the rails and roads, and then there's these big blue lines that no one ever really thinks about.
• 22:03
  Vince Mantero: But you have to think about it as part of our transportation system.
• 22:07
  Vince Mantero: And it is really, in many ways, an untapped resource.
• 22:12
  Jim Kruse: It's interesting.
• 22:13
  Jim Kruse: I quite often think about the waterways as being kind of like the airline industry.
• 22:17
  Jim Kruse: You never think about it until a plane crashes, and then everybody thinks about it.
• 22:20
  Jim Kruse: And it's kind of the same way on the waterways.
• 22:22
  Jim Kruse: Nobody even notices the waterways until a ship hits a barge and you got oil going everywhere and things go crazy.
• 22:27
  Jim Kruse: Then they notice it.
• 22:29
  Jim Kruse: But our job really is to try to make the case that you should notice it more.
• 22:32
  Jim Kruse: It's making a difference in your life.
• 22:34
  Jim Kruse: And maintaining the system and making it work efficiently really is important for the nation as a whole.
• 22:40
  Allan Rutter: Well, that's a good segue into another question that I had is: How do we help our listeners understand why should maritime important matters matter to them?
• 22:50
  Allan Rutter: What difference does it make to their lives?
• 22:53
  Allan Rutter: How important is maritime activity to normal folks in the rest of the country?
• 22:59
  Jim Kruse: Well, I know it may change under the Trump Administration if he has his way, but in the past, if you walked around your house, pick a room in your house, and look at where things are made that's in that room, just pick them up and see what the label says it's made in.
• 23:11
  Jim Kruse: Very few of them are made in the U.S.
• 23:13
  Jim Kruse: They came on a boat from some other country around the globe.
• 23:16
  Jim Kruse: It could have been from Europe, could have been from China, could have been from South America, but it came from somewhere else.
• 23:22
  Jim Kruse: And if that system breaks down, you won't have that anymore.
• 23:26
  Jim Kruse: And so it's really important for that system to work.
• 23:29
  Jim Kruse: And we noticed during COVID how important it was because all of a sudden people couldn't find things in the store.
• 23:33
  Jim Kruse: And they just went crazy because when are we going to be able to get it?
• 23:36
  Jim Kruse: And nobody really knew because the system was broken at the time.
• 23:39
  Jim Kruse: I mean, you can see it in day-to-day life, and COVID kind of highlighted that for us so we could really see how important it is.
• 23:46
  Vince Mantero: Yeah, I would add to that, right, so for example this is what happened during COVID in, kind of, what is known as "the supply chain crisis." I think, as being in MARA at the time in the Maritime Administration, I think it kind of bothered me a lot for the picture of the supply chain crisis to be seeing all those container ships off ports and ports being blamed.
• 24:09
  Vince Mantero: And I think people began to have a sense of well, it's not just one part of it that goes wrong.
• 24:16
  Vince Mantero: It's...
• 24:16
  Vince Mantero: you have to look at the entire supply chain, the entire freight network.
• 24:20
  Vince Mantero: And it could be because of truck shortages, it could be because of container shortages, it could be because of rail issues.
• 24:29
  Vince Mantero: So as Jim alluded to, sometimes people realize and look at ports when things may go bad, when they see those pictures of container ships.
• 24:38
  Vince Mantero: But I think when things move very smoothly, they don't think about them too much.
• 24:43
  Vince Mantero: And our role is to tell that story and also help our partners tell that story too, because while we can only be as effective as we can be, it's those that require that support and also those that are hiring, those that are impacting the economy, those that are directly related to the importance of our maritime industry.
• 25:07
  Vince Mantero: And so we just need to continue to get that message out and not just be a picture on a screen and realize everything that's moving.
• 25:16
  Jim Kruse: I heard one time of a hearing on the West Coast about a port expansion.
• 25:20
  Jim Kruse: One woman stood up and said, Why do we have to keep expanding these ports?
• 25:23
  Jim Kruse: If I need something, I'll just go down to Walmart and get it.
• 25:25
  Jim Kruse: Well, what she doesn't understand is, Walmart will have nothing on the shelves if that port doesn't expand.
• 25:31
  Jim Kruse: And so it's very important to our daily life, our way of living for these ports to operate.
• 25:36
  Allan Rutter: Well, that makes a really good point.
• 25:38
  Allan Rutter: Let's talk a little bit about the transition at the Center for Ports and Waterways.
• 25:43
  Allan Rutter: Jim, what are some of the things that you've been able to do during your tenure that you're the most proud of?
• 25:49
  Jim Kruse: Well, there's a lot of interesting things that I've done.
• 25:51
  Jim Kruse: And what I like the most is that a lot of what I've done has actually been put to use.
• 25:55
  Jim Kruse: It's not sitting on a shelf somewhere.
• 25:57
  Jim Kruse: People care about what it says.
• 25:59
  Jim Kruse: And I like that.
• 26:00
  Jim Kruse: For instance, we did a study of the chemical tanker traffic on the Houston Ship Channel, and several large industries, including Shell, picked that up and said, we've got to fix this problem.
• 26:09
  Jim Kruse: And they used that report to get the ball rolling in that area.
• 26:12
  Jim Kruse: We've done an analysis of what it costs a port when you don't keep it dredged properly.
• 26:17
  Jim Kruse: And that also helped them get the funding to get the dredging done.
• 26:21
  Jim Kruse: We've worked in the waterways industry on locks and dams.
• 26:25
  Jim Kruse: The whole infrastructure of the industry is in peril right now.
• 26:27
  Jim Kruse: It's not being maintained; it's in bad shape.
• 26:30
  Jim Kruse: A lot of things need to happen.
• 26:31
  Jim Kruse: We've been able to document that, explain what happens when you don't maintain it, what you need to do to maintain it, and so forth.
• 26:37
  Jim Kruse: And so we've also looked at, for instance, like we did a Gulf Intracoastal Waterway Master Plan for the Texas Department of Transportation.
• 26:44
  Jim Kruse: And as a result of that plan, we noticed that the Brazos River floodgates needed to be fixed.
• 26:50
  Jim Kruse: And they noticed that as well.
• 26:52
  Jim Kruse: And they took our report, went to the Texas Transportation Commission and the legislature and got money to start working on that Brazos River floodgates.
• 26:59
  Jim Kruse: So the things that we're doing make a difference.
• 27:01
  Jim Kruse: That's a really good thing.
• 27:03
  Allan Rutter: That's a great point.
• 27:04
  Allan Rutter: Vince, what about this job attracted you to it?
• 27:08
  Allan Rutter: And then, what are the kinds of issues or opportunities that you're going to be focusing on in your first couple of years with TTI?
• 27:16
  Vince Mantero: Well, just listening to Jim for a few more minutes kind of reinforces why this job is so great.
• 27:23
  Vince Mantero: You know, for me, when I was thinking about this, I thought, well, this is that position and that next step in my career that really kind of combines everything I've always been interested in, which is kind of policy, planning, and operations, and then research all in one place.
• 27:40
  Vince Mantero: And what's always impressed me about the center is not only is it great research, but it's research that's being implemented that people can take and use, whether it's a public agency, whether it's an operator, whether it's a port.
• 27:56
  Vince Mantero: It's not research for the sake of research.
• 27:59
  Vince Mantero: And I thought, well, this is the next logical step in my career.
• 28:02
  Vince Mantero: Again, I knew so many colleagues and my work at MARAD and elsewhere from TTI.
• 28:07
  Vince Mantero: I knew the capabilities, and then I came to the realization that there really is only one Center for Ports and Waterways in this country.
• 28:16
  Vince Mantero: And it is in TTI.
• 28:18
  Vince Mantero: And I thought to myself, you know, it's hard to say no.
• 28:21
  Vince Mantero: I think it kind of combined everything that I was looking for in my next career stuff.
• 28:27
  Allan Rutter: Talk a little bit about what you see as the opportunities for maritime research at TTI going forward.
• 28:35
  Vince Mantero: A lot of it is building on what Jim has already done.
• 28:38
  Vince Mantero: And I do think there's some other areas, and we've alluded to them a few times.
• 28:42
  Vince Mantero: There's a strong emphasis right now on the maritime industrial base from an economic persepective.
• 28:50
  Vince Mantero: Especially, Texas is so well positioned.
• 28:52
  Vince Mantero: There's a lot of talk now about kind of reinvigorating the shipbuilding industry.
• 28:57
  Vince Mantero: But I think that part of it is really interesting to me.
• 29:00
  Vince Mantero: The other part, and again, I alluded to it, was this question of where maritime fits into national defense.
• 29:07
  Vince Mantero: And a common theme, it's a little bit out of sight, out of mind.
• 29:11
  Vince Mantero: But if you talk to the Department of Defense or Department of Navy, they'll be the first ones to tell you how important our ports are and how important maritime is.
• 29:21
  Vince Mantero: And so I'd like to look into that a little bit, only because I just think those are very timely right now.
• 29:27
  Vince Mantero: And ultimately, it's also how can we think about this question of resiliency?
• 29:35
  Vince Mantero: Not only how to make our maritime network and ports stronger, more resilient, but how to leverage those ports and our waterways during some of these man made or weather related events.
• 29:49
  Vince Mantero: Can they be used for, as I mentioned, either national defense for evacuation, et cetera?
• 29:55
  Vince Mantero: So I think there's some areas that I'm very interested in.
• 29:59
  Vince Mantero: But again, A lot of it is just building on the great work that Jim and the center have already done.
• 30:04
  Allan Rutter: I could tell from our conversation today and from working with both of you over the years that you have plenty of passion for making transportation better for both practitioners and travelers.
• 30:14
  Allan Rutter: What are some of the reasons that you show up for work every day?
• 30:17
  Allan Rutter: And of course, this is going to be a looking back question for Jim who retires at the end of the month.
• 30:23
  Allan Rutter: But what is it that drives you to do this?
• 30:26
  Jim Kruse: Well, for me, it's two things.
• 30:28
  Jim Kruse: One is I work with some really interesting, competent, and knowledgeable people.
• 30:33
  Jim Kruse: And that makes any job fun because you get to learn all the time.
• 30:36
  Jim Kruse: You're developing skills, you're seeing things you wouldn't have seen otherwise.
• 30:40
  Jim Kruse: It's a lot of fun.
• 30:40
  Jim Kruse: The second reason is because the maritime industry, as I stated earlier, is such a broad-ranging, varied organization of things.
• 30:49
  Jim Kruse: You meet people from all over the world, you get different types of equipment, different types of processes, different kinds of supply chains, just the variety of things that you can look into and the people you meet and work with is just astounding.
• 31:02
  Allan Rutter: Vince, what about you?
• 31:04
  Vince Mantero: Yeah, I would agree with Jim on the people.
• 31:06
  Vince Mantero: And I am in a ...
• 31:08
  Vince Mantero: I would say almost enviable position because I'm getting to meet so many new colleagues.
• 31:14
  Vince Mantero: I knew many before, but kind of the untapped resources that I have at my disposal is pretty amazing.
• 31:22
  Vince Mantero: And the people that I've met and their expertise is really jaw-dropping.
• 31:29
  Vince Mantero: And I'm so excited to work with them, getting to know them, getting to build on what they're already doing, and finding a way to continue to push for that maritime part in everything they do.
• 31:45
  Vince Mantero: But I would also say that what drives me is I love the maritime and ports field.
• 31:53
  Vince Mantero: I just always have seen it as a bit underrepresented in some of the work that I've done before.
• 32:01
  Vince Mantero: And I just think this is the time to really put it on the same level as when we talk about our roads and our rails and to talk about maritime and our ports and our waterways in the same vein, especially for those kind of port communities, our waterway communities.
• 32:21
  Vince Mantero: I think our operators deserve that, our ports deserve that, and our economy deserves that.
• 32:27
  Vince Mantero: And they need to be on even footing with the rest of our other modes.
• 32:32
  Vince Mantero: I'm a strong believer in that and continue to do that.
• 32:36
  Jim Kruse: The Center for Ports and Waterways has a very good future in front of it.
• 32:38
  Jim Kruse: I think Vince will do a great job with that.
• 32:41
  Allan Rutter: That's great.
• 32:42
  Allan Rutter: Well, thanks, guys.
• 32:43
  Allan Rutter: Thanks for being part of our podcast.
• 32:44
  Allan Rutter: I appreciate it.
• 32:46
  Jim Kruse: You're welcome.
• 32:46
  Vince Mantero: Thank you, Allan, for putting this together.
• 32:48
  Vince Mantero: Again, it's always a pleasure to be on any call with Jim.
• 32:51
  Vince Mantero: And I know he won't be a stranger at all...
• 32:53
  Vince Mantero: E xcited to talk about this together.
• 32:57
  Allan Rutter: A point of personal privilege to close our conversation today.
• 33:01
  Allan Rutter: In my nearly 12 years at TTI, I've had the pleasure of working with Jim Kruse on a number of research projects.
• 33:08
  Allan Rutter: And when we visited any Texas port, either the folks there already know him, or they can quickly size him up as someone who knows what he's talking about.
• 33:18
  Allan Rutter: Traveling together all over the state, I've had the chance to get to know Jim and can affirm that he is a genuinely good guy.
• 33:26
  Allan Rutter: It's been my honor to be his colleague, and I and all of TTI wish him fair winds and following seas.
• 33:33
  Allan Rutter: I know that Jim joins me in welcoming Vince into his new role, and we both look forward to new horizons for the center under his leadership.
• 33:42
  Allan Rutter: Thanks for listening.
• 33:45
  Allan Rutter: If you liked what you heard or learned something, please take just a minute to give us a review, subscribe, and share this episode.
• 33:53
  Allan Rutter: I invite you to join us next time for another conversation about getting ourselves and the stuff we need from point A to point B.
• 34:01
  Allan Rutter: Thinking Transportation is a production of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, a member of The Texas A&M University System.
• 34:11
  Allan Rutter: The show is edited and produced by Chris Pourteau.
• 34:15
  Allan Rutter: I'm your host, Allan Rutter.
• 34:17
  Allan Rutter: Thanks again for joining us.
• 34:18
  Allan Rutter: We'll see you next time.