The N.C. State Ports Authority Board of Directors late last month named Paul Cozza its new executive director.
Cozza previously served in several roles for shipping company Maersk Line Ltd. and the CSX Corp./Sea-Land Service Inc. railroad.
An Army veteran and graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Cozza also holds a master’s in business administration from Fairleigh Dickinson University.
Cozza is joining an agency that seems to be moving in the right direction. The authority broke financial records during the 2012-13 fiscal year, thanks to a Midwest drought that buoyed imports of feed grain to the Port of Wilmington.
During that fiscal year that ended June 30, the ports authority posted an operating margin of 13.7 percent and bottom line profit of $5.1 million. The ports had posted a much smaller profit of $394,000 the previous year after three straight years of multimillion-dollar losses.
Cozza now oversees operations at the deepwater ports of Wilmington and Morehead City, as well as inland terminals in Charlotte and Greensboro and a marina in Southport.
The StarNews recently took a few minutes with Cozza to discuss his plans for the ports’ future.
What are your goals for the N.C. State Ports Authority moving forward?
Cozza said his first priority is to “get knowledge of the port.”
“The first step is really to get out and understand our capabilities and operations,” he said.
Cozza said the ports are a “conduit of business for the state.