John Wolfe

The Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA) was formed by the ports of Tacoma and Seattle to unify marine cargo facility management and enhance regional economic benefits. The strategic plan focuses on attracting more cargo, making strategic terminal, road, and rail investments, and establishing an Operations Service Center to improve customer service. Key goals include growing jobs, increasing cargo volumes, and maintaining financial stability by 2025, with specific metrics for vessel turnaround, crane production, truck turn times, and rail transit efficiency. The plan aims to ensure the Puget Sound gateway remains competitive and responsive to industry changes.

This strategic narrative outlines the vision and goals for the Northwest Seaport Alliance, focusing on regional growth, customer value, and community service. Key strategic pillars include leveraging existing capacity to attract new shippers, achieving ambitious 10-year financial and cargo volume goals through collective stakeholder effort, and establishing a unified voice for advocacy. The plan aims to integrate independent organizations to improve the gateway for regional benefit, ultimately positioning it as one of North America's most attractive gateways known for efficiency and reduced congestion.

The Seaport Alliance's Strategic Business Plan aims to enhance competitiveness and establish the alliance as the gateway of choice. It addresses industry changes such as new competition, ultra-large container ships, and terminal capacity issues. The plan focuses on critical success factors including optimizing infrastructure investment, improving terminal utilization and productivity, enhancing rail competitiveness, and fostering a supportive regulatory climate. Key initiatives are structured around service delivery excellence, gateway growth and optimization, and strengthening the gateway business environment. The plan envisions achieving 70% terminal utilization, doubling container volume to 6 million TEU, generating 14,600 incremental jobs, and ensuring financial sustainability by 2025.

The Managing Members of the Northwest Seaport Alliance convened to discuss and adopt the Sixth Amended Managing Member Bylaws. These amendments include changes to the starting time of the public portion of the regular Alliance Managing Member Meetings and provide flexibility to the presiding responsibility in the event the scheduled Co-Chair is unavailable.

This document, the Resilient Gateway Vulnerability Assessment and Response Framework Summary, is designed to inform policy development and strategic decision-making for the Northwest Seaport Alliance (NWSA). It provides a framework for an Implementation Plan by assessing the NWSA's exposure and vulnerability to eight key natural hazards: coastal flooding, general flooding, severe weather, wildfires and smoke, landslides, earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanic activity. The plan outlines a response framework focusing on preparing for and mitigating these hazards through education, planning, and adapting infrastructure, aiming to enhance the long-term economic vitality and resilience of the region's critical infrastructure and operations.