This post is in response to an inquiry made by Mary Campbell about the sources I rely on in support of opinions that I have expressed about the port project and what connections I may have with Barry Sheehy.
Hi Mary-
Thanks for your hint on evading the 2000 character limit, which is a real pain. As a GoCapeBreton newbie, I didn't think through how to post rather than to simply comment on the posts of others
A little background information, my partner Gene and became full time Gabarus residents in 2008. We subsequently met Barry and his wife and quickly became friends. Among other projects, we have assisted Barry with editing his latest book. In the constant back and forth interaction that takes place between writers and editors, we have come to know Barry very well. We both hold him in extremely high regard. He is a person of high moral character who possesses a facile and creative mind and is one who takes his devotion to important causes and projects very seriously.
While I cannot speak for Albert's interests, as I have met him on only a few brief occasions, what I can do is vouch for Barry's interests and intentions since the outset of his engaging on the port development project. Ever since he was shown the Sydport site by a friend, (a lifelong Cape Bretoner), Barry saw a great potential for a major port development that could have significant upsides for the local and regional economies.
Being a visionary, he also saw that if a large-scale port project were to succeed here, it would also have positive impacts on the national economy. Those observations didn’t require a degree in port design or marketing. What was required was an open mind, imagination, vision, and extensive international business contacts coupled with a lot of consultation with world class experts combined with numerous around the country and around the world treks to meet with industry leaders. If Barry and Albert were not trained port development experts at the beginning, there is little doubt that they have become so, and are regarded as such now by leaders in the industry around the world.
It took a combination of Barry’s long career of varied experience in which among many other accomplishments, he was engaged as a consultant by a number of Fortune 500 U.S. firms that were in trouble. As a troubleshooter for these companies, Barry successfully identified faulty business strategies and outdated corporate attitudes that were in many cases leading some of these huge firms toward serious loss of market share and in some cases toward dissolution. In effect, Barry was a turnaround expert. When it came to looking at the potential for a major project that could boost the Cape Breton economy, he understood from the get go that the Port of Sydney was an underutilized resource, located in a community where turnaround strategies were desperately needed.
When Barry expressed on HPDP's initial website that one of their goals was to in effect make transportation history; (he is sometimes prone to hyperbole); in this instance, he meant it. This is a goal shared by Michael White, president of Maersk North America, which is part of the largest, most successful shipping company in the world. His company has the largest stake in the new mega-ships. Mr. White has expressed frustration at the failure of ports in North America to modernize and to enter the 21st century by adopting the latest technologies and making investments in landside infrastructure to end the crippling bottlenecks and slowed deliveries now being seen often at both East Coast and West Coast ports in the U.S.
Anyone who has looked at the sorry state of much of the transport infrastructure in the U.S. recognizes that is not up to the challenges and the enormous stress it is under at a time when repair budgets have been slashed. And the fact is, no matter how many funds are expended in connection with some of these ports, they will simply not be able to compete for a share of the mega container ship business, because port modernization is not the only problem they face. It is that many U.S. ports in major metropolitan areas have to contend with insufficient acreage, already gridlocked highways and clogged rail lines. These last two issues have resulted in some instances in a doubling of time for containers offloaded at these ports to reach their destinations than had been the case a in years past. This dilemma would be compounded if instead of offloading 8,500 TEU ships; they modify their port to unload 18-24,000 TEU vessels.
Barry recognizes that the opportunity afforded by the large footprint, undeveloped Sydport site is for a state-of-the-art container port that can be linked to upgraded rail capacity to accommodate offloading of the largest container ships in the world. As many experts have told him, there is no other location on the Eastern Seaboard that is in a better position than Sydney to make this happen, for a whole host of reasons. In a sense, their efforts have already changed transportation history. There is now a wide agreement by port builders, engineers, investors and significant segments of the shipping industry that Sydney has the potential to become a hub of world commerce. If that isn't making transportation history, I don't know what is. I know, I know, it isn't built yet. But with every new partnership, every new collaborator and every major player that has thus far come to the table, the likelihood of success grows. And it should be noted, there are a number of big players with whom ongoing discussions and negotiations are underway who appear to be close to joining the project, some as equity partners. The development model being followed will rely heavily of a number of equity partners to finance the project as it moves from concept to execution. This is a business model specifically chosen to limit the exposure to taxpayers and to maximize returns to the municipality and the province without the project having had to rely on government grants and massive government loans and tax incentives. This is a widely overlooked aspect of the project.
It’s important to recognize that this high level of activity and commitment by outside firms has been reached with the expenditure of relatively few taxpayer dollars to date, as Barry and Albert have continued to take on the massive responsibilities and expenses that in such large projects are ordinarily borne by major corporations or supported with large funding infusions and/or incentives provided by various levels of government. For their efforts to date, they have received mostly skepticism and in some cases outright scorn. These attitudes will never be expressed by me or by anyone else who knows Barry well. No one who knows him would ever fault his unfailing generosity or his commitment to improving the places in which he has lived.
The incremental port development strategy engaged in by HPDP began with securing two marine services companies as necessary attributes to support the expansion of ship traffic in Sydney.
To put things into perspective, prior to McKeil Marine choosing Sydney as its Atlantic Canada base of operations, there are examples of how necessary such services are in an active port. As I understand it, in 2014, there were cruise ships that had to cancel visiting Sydney and sail by due to bad weather, as there were at the time no tugboats operating in the harbour. Some estimates indicate that these ships having forgone docking here cost the Port of Sydney more than a million dollars in lost potential revenues. These lost opportunities and lost revenues could well have exceeded the purchase price CBRM paid for the property where the McKeil operation is located. Today, if a large ship needs assistance entering the harbour, McKeil has tugboats and local crews that stand ready, 24 hours a a day to help guide them safely to dockside.
Barry and any of us who have studied the Ivany Report and other white papers about the downward trajectory of the Cape Breton's economy (and to some extent the province's as a whole), needs to be open to recognizing when and where the time might be ripe for exploring the potential of large new development initiatives to perhaps be game changers. For Barry, from the beginning, the port project has been about helping to bring the port concept into reality. It has never been about what earnings he might derive from it. As time has gone on, he and Albert have spent significant sums of their own money and time to advance the case. They of course need to look at having those expenses eventually repaid and to receive reasonable compensation, should the project go forward, that is in line with the efforts they have expended to make it happen.
My interest, as a retiree with a background in research, (business, historical, medical), has been to devote significant time, (about two years, essentially full time), to look into any and all aspects of port-related statutes, regulations, shipping industry trends, patterns and business practices, port operations, and periodic reviews of world, national and regional economic conditions as they might affect a new build port project.
In the process, I have studied and collected an archive of hundreds of articles and websites with relevant details touching on one or another of the above subjects. As a result I consider myself fairly well informed on the worldwide shipping industry and on port development, operations, transshipment strategies and issues around intermodal transport and how all these elements operate in the context of the efficiency, (or lack thereof), of worldwide supply chains.
I have never asked for, nor accepted any payment for my research efforts, (nor has my partner Gene, who has devoted much time to these subjects as well). In the interest of full disclosure, I was asked by Barry to coordinate the transition of the HPDP website to the new Novaporte site, for which I accepted a modest honorarium.
Despite occasional missteps and misjudgments on the part of the parties who have engaged in the port development effort, the project continues to gain momentum, against the odds and certainly against the expectations of those who believe it will never happen. I remain optimistic that with all of the hard work that has gone into it and despite some of the frustrations that have been encountered along the way, it will eventually pay off for our local community, our province and the nation.
Port Points to Ponder
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Tim Menk
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