Port of Astoria Commissioners - Scroll Down for more Bios

  Commissioner Dan Hess

Commissioner Hess was born at St. Mary's Hospital in Astoria. You might say he has grown up around many areas which made him a likely candidate for Port Commissioner. He has earned his livelihood working a farm with his dad, but also spent 28 years as a longshoreman. From 1966 until 1980 he owned a logging company and has spent ten years as a deckhand on a towboat. He has worked locally and in Alaska, and now is part-owner in a trucking company which hauls fish up and down the coast of Oregon. "My granddad had a fishboat," he said. "When you plank a wood boat they countersink the nail head and then put cork over it so the nail doesn't rust. We used to dip the cork in white lead, put it in the hole and drive it in. Then my grandpa came along and smoothed it off. I used to come out of there just speckled white."

When asked why he had run for the Port Commission, he replied, "At that time we had a grain elevator. I started to do some research and found up the river they were tearing out a grain elevator. We could get parts for $8,000 and I talked to the commission about it. If we could buy the parts and unload barges, we could increase our business. I was told the future of the Port was not in grain. That ticked me off, so I decided to Port could look into other things and here we are."

Commisioner Hess is not new to public service and he has served on the board for Lewis and Clark School for 16 years as well as on the board for the Education Service District. "I have enjoyed trying to meet problems and get them solved for the betterment of the area," he continued. "Whether or not I have helped get them solved is one thing, but I would like to think I have.

"We are here for the betterment of the Port. I really think my previous experience on the school board has helped me. We'd start at 6 and by 7:30 it was time to go home. You try to make allowances for people: they have to be able to speak their peace and discuss things, but we need to move ahead."

  Commissioner Larry Pfund

Commissioner Pfund is currently serving his second term as Port Commissioner. He joined the commission in 2001 after being encouraged to run for one of three upcoming positions. He is a Clatsop County native, having been born in Astoria and moving to the Seaside/Gearhart area for the rest of his upbringing and adult life. "I have always had an appreciation for the Port," he said. "I grew up coming to the Port to watch all the activities. At times my father did casual longshore work and we had a neighbor who was also a longshoreman. What was going on at the docks was a part of our life.

"When I was younger I was a logger," he continued. "and I have been a commercial fisherman. I attended school at Blue Mountain College in Pendleton, Oregon, and I have an associate degree in diesel and heavy equipment maintenance and repair. I worked with the Clatsop County Road Department just short of 20 years. I have been in heavy equipment my whole life. I am just a blue-collar-type guy. I retired due to a problem with my knees. I had an accident and was just recovering from that when I ran for the Port Commission.

"We are trying to find solutions," he said. "At a recent meeting in Portland forty people admitted that Astoria, and to a lesser extent, Ilwaco, are the poster children of the Columbia River with our dredging and contamination problems. They are all trying to help us. We have a higher concentration of hazards in our dredge materials....We are re-building bridges that were damaged during the violations. Now, that is a positive mark.

"I am pretty happy with the progress we have made. We have cleaned up most of our area and made some changes to move forward economically.  In hindsight, most things have been good and others only somewhat successful. I guess I would call attention to the cannery jobs. My mother worked at a cannery which used to pay good wages. Now that is a minimum wage job and a lot of the workers come in from out of the area. That is a disappointment to me. I would like to see more local people working those jobs.

"Part of me still has kept an eye open for moving freight on these docks. I don't think we will be loading and offloading cars, but there are niche markets. We have reserved Pier 1 for industry and I'd like to see that expand. There may be niche markets to bring in revenue from the water over our docks and we need to continue to explore possibilities.

"For a success, I consider the Englund Marine building and the boat haulout. Those projects have been a boon to both the Port and the region, and we look forward to more projects such as those in the future."

  Commissioner Bill Hunsinger

“I was born in Washington DC, “ said Port commissioner Bill Hunsinger, “but my mom and dad were born and raised here. I was here before age 1, so I have been here all my life.”

 Bill was a longshoreman for 44 years before retiring last February. He has also been a commercial fisherman since 1963. He stated why he became a Port commissioner: “I made a good living at the Port of Astoria....got a good retirement out of the union and I wanted to give something back.” He says he is the ‘bulldog’ of the commission and is hoping that he can make a difference in his new role. “As area chairman for the Columbia River and all of Oregon for the longshoremen, I learned an awful lot about shipping, and ports, and how they are run.

 “Being a commercial fisherman for forty-plus years I definitely have a pretty good handle on the fishing industry as well. My step-dad, Eddie Goodrich, was president of the boat owners association for the whole west coast so I know most of those guys.

 “I am a very strong labor guy. I am very interested in labor and I think we are going to make the right steps. The new dredging permit and better dredging will open the door for better opportunity than we have had before. I would like to see some moderate shipping come to the Port. All of the big ports are out of room and there is no place for expansion. Smaller ports are going to benefit from that.

 “I am looking to bring some trust and credibility back to the Port by the taxpayers and voters. We have to get past where we are. We need to take a break and settle in before we start making major decisions.”

  Commissioner Kathy Sanders

Commissioner Kathy Sanders was sworn in on July 10, 2007.  Kathy was born in Utah but moved here from Ucon, Idaho ( a small town near Idaho Falls) in March of 2003, with her husband Steve. She holds a degree in business administration with an emphasis in management, skills she honed during her tenure with the U.S. Air Force, where she completed her service with the rank of Captain.  "I separated from the Air Force after fulfilling my commitment," she said.  "I managed a electronic's maintenance branch of between sixty and eighty personnel.  That gave me the supervisory experience I thought would be helpful to me as a Port commissioner."

 Currently, Kathy is a published poet who has put on hold researching her next work, a non-fiction book, to devote more time to her position as commissioner. “I really feel we are in a critical timeframe right now....the land values have so sharply escalated even in the four years I have lived in the area. It is a time to make wise choices. What we do needs to benefit all residents of Clatsop County and not get focused on one industry, say tourism or fishing, in case one declines. We have to have a good balance to keep us afloat. It is an exciting time. The decisions we make now will have an impact on the next 20 years. Overall, when you look at Englund Marine, the boat haulout and the fish processing which has picked up on pier 2. The Bornstein plant has been a big part of that. It has been a healthy economic generator for the area. The port docks are just one aspect: We have the airport where we are trying to get commercial air service. The decisions we make will change the face of the Port.”

  Commissioner Floyd Holcom
Commissioner Holcom is a native Astorian who grew up on the Port docks. In his youth both his father and foster father were commercial fishermen and longshoremen at the Port of Astoria.  “My brother Jimmy and I used to catch sucker fish and sell them to the Japanese ships that once tied up to the Port docks, sometimes getting a buck apiece” comments Floyd.

Floyd joined the U.S.  Army at age 17 and became a Green Beret serving at the needs of the US Government and taking his 30 days-a-year leave to gillnet fish in Alaska, a skill he learned on the Columbia River.  His private life included graduating from Oregon State University, foreign study at Beijing University in China, a stint as a state employee in Economic Development’s International Trade Institute in Portland, and traveling to 84 countries as a consultant.  “At ITI, I met Oregon's’ gurus in Port development, from the Port of Portland to the Port of Coos Bay. International trade was a big priority for the State.”  

When Measure 5 stripped Oregon’s budgets, Commissioner Holcom started an international consulting company, The IBIS Group, which he still owns today - 17 years later. While living and working out of the IBIS Portland and Hong Kong office, Commissioner Holcom consulted Nike, Inc. of Beaverton, ADEC Dental of Newberg and Powell’s Books of Portland by penetrating Vietnam as America’s first businesses since the Vietnam War.  

Floyd returned to Astoria and is now the owner of the Pier 39 Facility in Astoria (Formerly known as the Hanthorn/CRPA/Bumble Bee Cold Storage Building).   “I look forward to seeing the Port of Astoria’s rebirth into the Pride of the Columbia River”, said Commissioner Holcom.