It was a beautiful day for another new member induction at RCSE this past Friday. The club welcomed Kim Campbell as a new member! After all Rotary business items were discussed, Laura Lane McKinnon introduced our speaker for the day who was Lee Beckman, Manager of Government Affairs at Georgia Ports Authority.
Lee began by showing a short video of operations at the port. The port is operational 24 hours a day and is only closed four days a year. There are currently 1800 employees of the Georgia Ports Authority. The economic impact of GPA is substantial and has a ripple effect throughout the state of Georgia. This past year, $3.8 billion in state and local taxes was generated from the GPA.
Currently, Savannah and the surrounding area is the hottest industrial real estate in the country! Warehouses can't be built fast enough to store all the cargo that is coming through our port. There are multiple ports throughout our state with Garden City being the busiest one. Garden City Port has 1500 acres which makes it the largest in the Western Hemisphere. This also allows for a lot of flexibility within port operations since the land mass is so large. In fact, GPA is currently expanding their terminals. Lee concluded his talk by saying that Savannah has been connected to international trade from the beginning. It is part of Savannah and will continue to play a major role in our city.