By Mark Edward Nero
Port of Tacoma CEO John Wolfe was granted a four percent pay increase by the port’s governing board on Aug. 7, raising his annual pay to $257,000.
Wolfe, a Puyallup, Wash. native, was named the port’s chief executive officer in June 2010 after a five-year stint as deputy executive director.
During his tenure so far, he has overseen substantial growth in containerized cargo volumes, mostly attributed to a move of the so-called Grand Alliance of shippers – NYK, OOCL and Hapag-Lloyd – which moved to Tacoma’s Washington United Terminals in 2012 from the rival Port of Seattle.
Before joining the Port of Tacoma, he spent two years as the executive director of the Port of Olympia, and before that was Olympia’s director of operations and marine terminal general manager.
He also spent 10 years with Maersk Sealand/APM Terminals in Tacoma, with his last role being the terminal’s operations manager.
With the raise, Wolfe will see his pay increase by about $10,000 a year. However, he’ll still earn less than the CEO of the neighboring Port of Seattle, Tay Yoshitani, who earns about $367,000 annually. Yoshitani, who is expected to retire later this year, has substantially more responsibilities than Wolfe, including oversight of the Sea-Tac Airport.