{"id":174639,"date":"2026-02-12T06:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/174639\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T06:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T06:08:16","slug":"new-port-of-long-beach-ceo-has-a-fondness-for-football-and-a-drive-to-win-the-trade-game-long-beach-business-journal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/174639\/","title":{"rendered":"New Port of Long Beach CEO has a fondness for football and a drive to win the trade game \u2022 Long Beach Business Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

For 8 \u00bd years, the Port of Long Beach has been led by an aficionado of classical music who saw to it that the sounds of Gershwin, Aaron Copland and Etta James filled the hall when hundreds gathered for the port\u2019s annual presentation to city leaders.<\/p>\n

Now a new guy is in charge, and he\u2019s more rock and roll.<\/p>\n

In his introduction for his State of the Port speech in January, new CEO Noel Hacegaba came out swinging his Gibson Les Paul \u201950s electric guitar. The opening video featured Hacegaba fronting for a group of port-employed musicians called \u201cThe TEUs\u201d \u2014 a play off a container measurement in shipping \u2014 with shots of the port\u2019s cranes and ships in the background. After the video finished, Hacegaba strolled out, his silhouette visible, rock\u2013star style, as he was bathed in smoke and blue light. It was fun to watch and more than a little over the top.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the part about him that makes people feel relaxed,\u201d said Frank Colonna, president of the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners. \u201cHe\u2019s not plastic. What you see is what you get.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mario Cordero, the classical pianist who retired as CEO last year, was \u201cmore of a baseball guy and I\u2019m more of a football guy,\u201d Hacegaba said. Where Cordero, who oversaw the Green Port initiatives as well as record influxes of cargo during and after the pandemic, was seen as genial, accessible and largely uninterested in the spotlight, Hacegaba brings the urgency of a quarterback facing fourth down and no timeouts.<\/p>\n

Hacegaba\u2019s game plan involves doubling capacity at the port \u2014 moving from 9.9 million <\/a>20-foot container units (TEUs) in 2025, a record, to 20 million by 2050. It also means demonstrating that the Port of Long Beach is a player in the shipping world, as Hacegaba flew to Davos, Switzerland, in January to speak at the World Economic Forum, the only representative from a U.S. port.<\/p>\n

\u201c2050 is the new goal line,\u201d said Hacegaba in an interview at the Port of Long Beach offices. He talks urgently about the need to \u201cexpand our playbook,\u201d and \u201cupdate our game plan and move to a hurry-up offense \u2026 because 24 years may sound like a long time, but in our world, when you\u2019re delivering infrastructure, when you\u2019re navigating fundamental changes and realignments and global trade, 24 years is not a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Noel Hacegaba, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, walked onto the stage holding a guitar as he led his first State of the Port in Long Beach on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/p>\n

Hacegaba speaks with the confidence and vocal projection of a seasoned preacher. He is the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in La Puente. It\u2019s a part-time job to which he devotes his Sundays.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, everything I do is a form of service,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I\u2019m at work I serve my team, I serve my customers, my stakeholders. Having that perspective, that fulfillment, energizes me.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a recent Sunday soon after the new year, Hacegaba spoke to his congregation on the finite nature of time, moving smoothly between English and Spanish: \u201cEach of us gets the same amount of time every day,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if you buy a watch that costs you $10,000, that expensive watch isn\u2019t going to give you a second more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hacegaba, 49, who lives in East Long Beach with his wife and two daughters, calls time a precious commodity and he meters it carefully. He rises about 4:30 every morning to work out and enjoy quiet time and set priorities for his day. He said he was always governed by discipline and credited his parents with instilling it.<\/p>\n

Hacegaba\u2019s great-grandfather was Japanese, and he and a friend agreed to sail to the U.S. after World War I. Somehow they ended up in Mexico. A clerk at immigration there mistakenly changed the family name from Hacegawa to Hacegaba, and it has stayed that way for generations.<\/p>\n

The L.A. native grew up in Baldwin Park and often spent Friday nights eating burgers at\u00a0 Southern California\u2019s first In-N-Out there. He grew up watching Marcus Allen and Bo Jackson play for the Raiders and dreamed of being a scientist like Jacques Cousteau. Then he switched his sights to engineering and eventually business and economics.<\/p>\n

His first language was Spanish and his parents, who came from Mexicali, worked in manufacturing and never finished high school. But they encouraged him to get an education. He got a full ride to USC and earned two undergraduate degrees and two master\u2019s before getting his doctorate in public administration from the University of LaVerne.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy parents, because they didn\u2019t have the benefit of an education \u2026 it was their desire for their children to pursue higher education.\u201d He was the first in his family to graduate from college.<\/p>\n

The longtime Raiders fan is committed to his hurry-up offense even with trade uncertainty swirling around the port, the second-largest in the U.S. next to the Port of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\"\"A photo of the Port of Long Beach is displayed behind Noel Hacegaba, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, during his first State of the Port address in Long Beach on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/p>\n

That means spending $3.2 billion on improving infrastructure with help from federal grant money, a project launched by his predecessor. The Pier B On-Dock Rail Support Facility, slated for completion in 2032, is designed to help move goods directly to trains and send those trains to distribution centers all over the country. It takes just under four days to unload a container, log it in and put it on a train. Hacegaba wants to trim that time to 24 hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo be more competitive, we need to be faster, right?\u201d he said. \u201cBecause what\u2019s the competitive advantage in supply chain goods movement? It\u2019s speed to market.\u201d He plans to invest in digital tools such as CargoNav that will help track goods in real time. He believes the rail project will facilitate quicker goods movement, getting goods right onto trains and trimming the number of polluting trucks chugging up the 710 Freeway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re located on the West Coast of the U.S., but only a third of all of our containers stay here,\u201d Hacegaba said. \u201cTwo-thirds of the containers that arrive here end up east of the Mississippi. So \u2026 the way we beat the competition \u2026 is by moving containers from Long Beach to all of these key inland markets as quickly as possible, faster than Savannah, faster than New York, New Jersey.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Long Beach port and other West Coast ports are facing \u201cheadwinds,\u201d said John McCown, author of the McCown Report that tracks shipping trends in the top 10 ports. Improvement in goods movement over recent years favors East Coast ports that are closer to U.S. population centers and the Midwest. East Coast ports are closer to 75% of higher population centers as opposed to 25% for the West Coast ports. The widening of the Panama Canal in 2016 made it easier to move goods from Asia to ports in the eastern and Gulf states.<\/p>\n

Another challenge is that the Port of Long Beach has a 4:1 trade deficit, meaning four times as many loaded containers sail in than sail out, which makes it less attractive as a destination port, McCown said, because it\u2019s seen as less efficient. The largest container growth area <\/a>for the port last year was in empties outbound and inbound, at 6.7% and 5.8%, respectively.<\/p>\n

\"\"Containers at the Port of Long Beach on Jan. 15, 2026. Photo by John Donegan.<\/p>\n

That reality infuses Hacegaba\u2019s evangelizing for port expansion. \u201cPart of updating our playbook\u201d means identifying new and emerging markets such as Latin America and the Indian subcontinent, he said. More than 90% of the port\u2019s shipments currently come from East Asian countries.<\/p>\n

Hacegaba wants the world to know the port is going big, thinking big, trade uncertainty be damned.<\/p>\n

A chance encounter prompted Hacegaba\u2019s move from waste movement to goods movement. As director of municipal services with Republic Services, a waste disposal company, he decided to attend a State of the Long Beach Port event 15 years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of my assignments \u2026 was to promote the company in Long Beach. I lived in Long Beach, I worked in Long Beach. And so I started attending events in Long Beach, and one of the events that I attended was the state of the port,\u201d Hacegaba said.\u00a0 \u201cI bought my ticket online. I showed up the day of the event, I checked in, got my seating assignment, went to the table, and every seat was taken. So either someone took my seat or there was a mishap. \u2026 The only seats available were at the tables way in the end, right next to the exit door. So I said, this is perfect. I can sneak out a little early.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hacegaba found himself chatting with the port\u2019s director of HR, who asked for his business card. Ten days later he got a letter with a job announcement from the port. He thought executive director to the board of harbor commissioners sounded like \u201ca cool job.\u201d He started in 2010.<\/p>\n

Mario Cordero, the outgoing port CEO who interviewed Hacegaba 15 years ago, said Hacegaba came across as a fast learner who had \u201cequanimity in his demeanor.\u201d Cordero pointed to the new CEO as he was being congratulated on the dais after his State of the Port presentation. \u201cHe dressed then as he does now \u2014 professional.\u201d Hacegaba grew to become Cordero\u2019s \u201cNo. 2\u201d guy and confidant. When Hacegaba became COO, he was on his way to the top job.<\/p>\n

Hacegaba\u2019s move to the port \u201cwasn\u2019t planned. It wasn\u2019t something I was looking for,\u201d said Hacegaba. \u201cIt was what I call providential. And here I am, almost 16 years later, having the time of my life and just enjoying every challenge and every moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"Noel Hacegaba, CEO of the Port of Long Beach, announces a record of 9.9 million TEUS as he held his first State of the Port in Long Beach on Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. Photo by Thomas R. Cordova.<\/p>\n

Those moments have to include reacting to uncertainty. He recalls when Donald Trump was re-elected, some in his field were saying they\u2019d \u201cseen this movie before\u201d regarding 2018 tariffs imposed against China, leading to a dive in the stock market and other repercussions during Trump\u2019s first term. \u201cWhat we saw unfold (in 2025) was not a rerun, and it was not a sequel. What we saw unfold was sweeping and unprecedented.\u201d The start of the year featured talk that Trump would levy more tariffs against Europe before apparently changing his mind in January. Trump levied an array<\/a> of tariffs in 2025.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s also the ongoing reality of port air pollution. While pollution has decreased markedly since 2005, the ports of Long Beach and L.A. are still the biggest fixed source polluters in the L.A. basin.<\/p>\n

The implementation of state air regulations helped force changes to cleaner trucks. The Clean Air Action Plans at the ports of L.A. and Long Beach have helped improve air around the port, said Sarah Rees, deputy executive officer for planning rule development and implementation for the South Coast Air Quality Management District. AQMD last year reached an agreement<\/a> with the ports to reduce pollution by 2029. \u201cA lot has been done. \u2026 There\u2019s still a long way to go because that huge port complex, L.A. and Long Beach is still a major polluter and still affecting the surrounding neighborhoods.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Port of Long Beach alone moves almost one-fifth of the country\u2019s cargo and supports 691,000 Southern California jobs. About 20,000 people work at the 3,520-acre port complex. The Long Beach and L.A. ports together move roughly 40% of all U.S. container imports.<\/p>\n

The move to trains, to faster goods movement, plays into the Green Port plan and Hacegaba\u2019s expansionist vision. Like a coach preparing for the season, Hacegaba seems driven to boost his team\u2019s stats and show the shipping world the Port of Long Beach projects strength and energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know what [legendary coach] Vince Lombardi once said, \u2018I\u2019ve never lost a football game. I just ran out of time.\u201d Hacegaba said. \u201cWe are shifting to a hurry-up offense to win, because we play to win here. I don\u2019t want us to run out of time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For 8 \u00bd years, the Port of Long Beach has been led by an aficionado of classical music…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":{"0":"post-174639","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-long-beach","8":"tag-long-beach","9":"tag-long-beach-headlines","10":"tag-long-beach-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}