Freight News, People, Sea

Forwarders-Brokers Honor NY-NJ Ports’ Rooney

[ January 10, 2025   //   Gary G Burrows ]

The New York-New Jersey Foreign Freight Forwarders and Brokers Association Inc., or NYNJFFFBA, has named Bethann Rooney, port director of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, as its 2025 Person of the Year.
Rooney will be feted at the association’s 107th Annual Dinner Gala, Feb. 6, 2025, in New York City.
With more than 30 years of service at the port authority, she has helped advance port security, promoted sustainability, and has driven growth the largest U.S. East Coast port.
Rooney started at the port authority in 1993 and has held a series of progressively higher-level management positions. She was appointed deputy port director in April 2019 after serving as the port’s assistant director overseeing policy, planning, legislative and regulatory affairs, as well as environmental sustainability, performance and efficiency. She is the architect and coordinator of the port’s Council on Port Performance, or CPP, a forum established as a framework for port constituents to identify challenges to port efficiency and service reliability and develop recommended solutions. She has managed and coordinated port-wide efforts to ensure that performance management and quality improvement efforts are developed and managed using a data-driven focus that sets priorities for improvements aligned to ongoing strategic imperatives. Prior to that, she was the agency’s first-ever manager, port security, having been tapped to take on that role on Sept. 12, 2001, and serving in that capacity for more than 13 years.
A graduate of the State University of New York Maritime College with a master’s in international transportation and a bachelor’s in marine transportation, Rooney began her career as a port captain/vessel agent for General Steamship Corp. She is also an accredited marine port executive from the International Association of Maritime and Port Executives.
For details about the dinner gala and the NYNJFFFBA, visit http://www.nynjforwarders-brokers.org/.

Tags: NYNJFFFBA, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey