Thursday, December 29, 2011

Port of Hueneme Hires New Director

The Oxnard Harbor District, which owns and operates the Port of Hueneme, has found a new director to replace Anthony Taormina, who stepped down in October.

His successor is Kristin Decas, 42, the director and CEO for the New Bedford Harbor Development Commission, which governs the Port of New Bedford in southeastern Massachusetts.

She was officially confirmed on a unanimous vote by the five-member Oxnard Board of Harbor Commissioners Dec. 22.

Decas, who became the HDC’s executive director in 2007, is expected to stay in her current position through January before relocating to Ventura County, California with her family.

She was the first woman to hold the Harbor Development Commission post and will break similar ground with the Oxnard district, according to an article in the Massachusetts newspaper South Coast Today.

Decas’ pay is expected to double once she starts her new job; she made $91,000 annually with the HDC, but with Oxnard is expected to earn about $180,000 annually, according to harbor board president Jess Herrera.

Taormina, who is in his late 60s, announced his resignation in April; he’d been the district’s executive director since 2006. This was his second stint in the job; he previously filled the same role for a decade, from 1985 to 1995.

About $7 billion in cargo passes annually through the Port of Hueneme, which is the sole deepwater port between Oakland and LA/Long Beach.