AAPA Seaports
U.S. ports continue to explore ways to acquire land to meet the rising demands of the industry while maintaining environmental sustainability. Two graduates from AAPA’s Port Professional Manager (PPM®) professional development program, Tyler Comeaux and Patrick Blair, undertook capstone projects that explore land acquisition and reclamation as potential port expansion solutions.
Tyler Comeaux is the Director of Operations at the Port of Caddo-Bossier, where he is responsible for capital improvement and operational enhancements in and around the port and maintaining approximately 4,000 acres of land and more than $1 billion of assets. Tyler joined the port in 2019 after a decade of private consulting engineering work.
Patrick Blair is the Vice President of Engineering at Port Tampa Bay, joining the Port in 2010. In his current role, Patrick oversees Port Tampa Bay’s capital improvements and the maintenance of the port’s approximately 5,000 acres including two Spoil Islands and over 75 berths.
For their PPM capstones, Tyler and Patrick wrote papers on different methods to expand port property for future development. Tyler’s paper, A Port’s Growth and Essential Expansion to Accommodate Future Industrial Development, describes the port’s opportunities and challenges in evaluating 125 square miles of jurisdictional land as part of their Port Expansion Study.
Patrick’s paper, Significant Land Reclamation in the United States, explores the requirements for land reclamation in different U.S. regions and provides a resource for ports that need more information on creating land adjacent to an existing deep-water channel by filling the water column.
These remarkable capstone projects by Tyler Comeaux and Patrick Blair exemplify the ingenuity and dedication that AAPA’s PPM program inspires. Port professionals interested in exploring the opportunities provided by AAPA’s professional development programs and initiatives can contact Shannon McLeod at [email protected].
