William Scriber, executive director, Port of Oswego, was a keynote speaker at the Transportation Go! Conference in Milwaukee, WI, the premier conference for soybean and gran transportation trade issues in the Upper Midwest. Milwaukee is one of the gateways to the St. Lawrence Seaway, the major conduit for shipping to the Port of Oswego.
“The Port of Oswego has stepped up as a major player in soybean and grain export on the Great Lakes,” Scriber said. “The recent opening of our NY State Grain Export Center and growing list of grain export contracts has solidified our position as a regional leader in this area.”
Scriber, a U.S. Army veteran, served in the U.S. Army Special Operations Command during Desert Shield – Desert Storm and is a graduate of the Army’s logistics school. He also holds a Bachelor’s of Arts Degree (BA) from SUNY Oswego and has earned CPE, Certified Port Executive™ credential. He has also worked at a logistics company in Syracuse, served as the Oswego County Commissioner of Elections, and joined the Port of Oswego staff in 2010. He served as Manager of Port Logistics from 2010 to 2017 and served as executive director since 2018.
According to its website, (https://transportationgo.com), the conference brought together the industry’s top stakeholders, from boots-on-the-ground commodity growers and organizations to traders and shippers of specialty crops. With scrutiny on the global supply chain more critical than ever, the conference provided in-depth discussions on the vital movement of agricultural products domestically and around the world.
“It was invaluable to have Oswego Port Director William Scriber present to the Transportation Go! Conference about the opening of the new Central New York Agricultural Export Center,” said Peter Hirthe, international trade specialist, The Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway Development Corporation. “Being able to export more U.S. agricultural products out of Lake Ontario to international markets will only strengthen the Great Lakes St Lawrence Seaway system,”
Oswego, for many years, was a major player both regionally and nationally in grain exports, Scriber said. “This ended the in the early 1980s, when the Port’s west pier grain silos were demolished. We aim to bring Oswego back to its prominent position as a major Northeast grain exporter to international markets.”
About 100 farmers from Oswego County and Central New York recently made the first deliveries to the Port export center. It’s part of a recent agreement the Port signed with The Andersons, Inc. (Nasdaq: ANDE), Maumee, OH, to lease the Port’s 780,000-bushel grain storage facility and export the grain on vessels to Europe and Africa. “Oswego is home to the largest facility of its kind on Lake Ontario and the most technologically advanced handling system in New York State and on the Great Lakes and has an on-site USDA lab. This system can unload a truckload of grain (35,000 lbs.) in less than a minute, and it can load a railcar (100 tons of grain) in just eight minutes. This reduced unloading time allows farmers the ability to flow more grain into the facility.”
The Grain Export Center was funded by the New York State Department of Transportation through a $15 million grant. Construction of the facility has involved scores of local workers and tradespeople, Scriber said.
The Port of Oswego’s strategic location at the crossroads of the Northeastern North American shipping market, puts them less than 350 miles from 60 million people. As one of the most productive ports in North America, the port supports 209 local jobs, $26.7 million in economic activity, and $13.8 million in personal income and local consumption expenditures, Scriber said.
For more information, visit www.portoswego.com
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