The White House’s Port and Supply Chain Envoy, retired U.S. Army General Stephen R. Lyons, toured the Port of Oakland on Aug. 29 and met with port officials and stakeholders.
Lyons has been visiting U.S. ports to address on-going supply-chain issues in America. He toured the Oakland Seaport to take a first-hand look at the maritime operations and learn more about Oakland’s port-terminal activities.
Lyons met with Port of Oakland Executive Director Danny Wan and Maritime Director Bryan Brandes to discuss the challenges Oakland maritime officials are facing and continue the federal dialogue to support solutions to goods movement at the port.
“I am committed to looking for ways to stabilize the entire supply chain across the nation and restore consumer confidence in the system, and the Port of Oakland plays an important role in our nation’s freight network,” Lyons said.
“We fully appreciate Gen. Lyons coming to Oakland to see our operations and explore solutions to the current supply-chain congestion,” Wan said in a statement. “Oakland has been a decades-long port of choice for agricultural exports; we need to restore a full complement of services here to help all of our customers move their goods.”
In the afternoon, Lyons met with agricultural exporters, importers and maritime terminal operators who rely on the Port of Oakland for their business. They explained how their operations are impacted by disruptions at various points in the supply chain. They include overflowing warehouses, a lack of labor at distribution centers, equipment shortages, the need for more vessel services to increase export capacity and a need to move imports off marine terminals faster to reduce cargo dwell time.
“We continue to look for creative ways to reduce port congestion and supply-chain disruptions at Oakland, including building infrastructure and increased transparency of data to increase the fluidity of commerce through our port,” Brandes said.