Chase RogersCorpus Christi Caller Times
Charles W. Zahn Jr. has always been a planner.
Shortly after the longtime Port Aransas resident’s appointment to the Port of Corpus Christi’s governing commission in 2012, he quizzed port staff members on whether they had any sort of big-picture, long-range plan to follow.
They didn’t have one.
That summer, the port sold 800 acres of highly sought-after property — where Naval Station Ingleside was before it was decommissioned — to Occidental Petroleum Corp. for $82 million. At the time, Zahn said, the port had not mulled over how to utilize or invest the funds.
“I asked, ‘What are we going to do with the money?’ and they said they didn’t know,” Zahn, 77, recalled in an interview. “So I said, ‘We’ve got to have a plan.’”
Corpus Christi’s port back then barely resembles what it is today. It all changed when the U.S. crude oil export ban was lifted in 2015 and when the fossil fuel-rich Permian Basin and Eagle Ford Shale came online — and Zahn was at the port’s helm as its chairman through the period of explosive growth.
The focus on planning has paid off. Coinciding with the port’s centennial year, the port is nearing the end of its yearslong improvement project for the ship channel, performed its final closeout on a landmark land acquisition and relocation program and received one of two environmental permits it needs to establish the state’s first large-scale seawater desalination facility.
As the longest-serving commissioner, Zahn’s position on the board is one of the few things that has remained unchanged over the years — a fact port CEO Sean Strawbridge says is a testament to the chairman’s “leadership and his ability to build consensus with different constituents.”
“Under his chairmanship, the port has experienced unprecedented growth,” Strawbridge said in an interview. “It has been transformed into a modern port authority, and that modernization was top to bottom: people, process and technology.”
More:Here's why Port of Corpus Christi CEO Sean Strawbridge's pay has nearly doubled since 2018
Zahn, for his stable hand and persistence in pushing forward the region’s primary economic engine, has been named by the Caller-Times as its Newsmaker of the Year.
Port A roots
While he had originally hoped to land somewhere in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where he grew up, Zahn’s first job after graduating from Baylor University's law school was in Corpus Christi as an insurance defense lawyer.
Not long after that, he planted roots in Port Aransas, where he and his wife of 55 years, Linda, are heavily involved in the close-knit island community. He left his law firm to go out on his own in the early 1970s, and his first client was Nueces County Water Control & Improvement District 4, which includes Port Aransas. It has been his client ever since.
“We’re a small community, so you're going to find that many people wear many hats, particularly those who have a heart for philanthropy and volunteerism,” said Wendy Moore, the newly elected mayor of Port Aransas and a close friend of Zahn. ”He is the epitome of that person.”
At the time of his appointment to the port commission in 2012, Zahn was serving as an appointee to the Nueces County Coastal Parks Board. After serving for 12 years, he was succeeded in 2017 by his daughter, Kim, on the board.
Bob Paulison, executive director of the Coastal Bend Industry Association, served on the parks board with Zahn for a time and noted the chairman’s reverence for long-term planning.
“His emphasis on strategic planning and then moving it into action was what was most impressive,” Paulison said. Paulison, who holds the top rank of Eagle Scout, also commended Zahn for his near-lifelong dedication to the Boy Scouts of America.
Major projects
In 2022, the port made headway on a number of big projects.
Notably, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in March earmarked the final installment of funding needed to finish the port’s Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project, which will widen and dredge the channel to a depth of 54 feet to accommodate larger vessels capable of carrying a greater amount and wider variety of goods. (Congress approved that funding as part of an omnibus spending bill in December.) The project, which had been authorized for years but lacked the necessary funding, first broke ground in 2019.
Zahn also played a key role in saving the Harbor Bridge project when the state, under the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott, planned to reallocate funding for the bridge replacement project following a civil rights complaint from the residents of Corpus Christi’s Hillcrest and Washington-Coles neighborhoods on the Northside, where the new bridge would connect.
Zahn’s efforts and the efforts of other local governmental entities resulted in a speedy agreement that allowed the bridge project: a voluntary land acquisition and relocation program for the neighborhoods.
In April, the port celebrated its final closeout program for the Northside neighborhoods, which bore an upfront cost of more than $54 million. While the port was ultimately reimbursed for all costs exceeding $20 million, he said it was an “extremely hard sell” to his fellow port commissioners at the time.
The new Harbor Bridge, which then broke ground in 2016 and was initially expected to be finished in 2020, is expected to usher in a wave of economic growth to the region with a higher vessel clearance and the newly deepened ship channel. However, as a result of multiple stoppages and design disputes, the nearly $1 billion Texas Department of Transportation project is now eyeing a 2025 completion date.
The port has broken many records as well. In 2021, 167 million tons of cargo moved through the port. Zahn said the port was poised to break that record in 2022, projecting that more than 185 million tons of cargo will have moved through the port by year’s end.
Focus before terming out
Zahn is entering his 12th year as a port commissioner, meaning he will be termed out and the Nueces County Commissioners Court will appoint his replacement in late 2023. (By statute, port commissioners can only serve three terms.)
His highest priority in the new year, he said, will be mending the rift between the port and city leadership on the subject of seawater desalination.
While the city and the port largely agree seawater desalination is the preferred method of bolstering the region’s waning water supply, relations between the two governmental entities have soured on the subject. The schism has resulted in the port and the city pursuing their own plans separate from each other — as a result, there are four different locations on or near Corpus Christi Bay where these facilities could be built.
The dispute spilled into public view in April when the City Council demanded the port rescind its $495 million loan application to the Texas Water Development Board. The port, which later pulled the application and said its filing was procedural in nature, sought the funds for its proposed plant on Port Aransas' Harbor Island, which city leaders have said is not a financially viable option for the city to operate.
Zahn is hopeful that, with the new composition of the City Council in 2023, the port and the city will be able to stabilize discussions and come to a solution. The need for water in the area is too great not to, he said.
“Water is still today the No. 1 issue we've got as far as bringing in additional industry to the area,” he said. “If we want to continue to grow in the Coastal Bend, we have to have an uninterruptible source of water, and the most reliable and the best source we've got is seawater desalination, no question about it.”
Regardless, the port has a bright future, as he sees it. Closing out his speech at the port's centennial celebration in November, he said as much.
"The Port of Corpus Christi pays tribute to the last 100 years and the people of the port who delivered us here," he said. "Today's anecdotes will become tomorrow's parables, but we will not soon forget the story of our port. We look forward to the next 100 years and the voyages ahead."
What to know about Charles W. Zahn Jr.
Highest education: Juris Doctor, Baylor UniversityRole: Chairman of the Port of Corpus Christi commissionCurrent annual salary: $0 (Port commissioners serve on a voluntary basis)Current Employment: Law Offices of Charles W. Zahn Jr., partner
Newsmakers of the Year
2022: Charlie Zahn, port chairman2021: Peter Zanoni, Corpus Christi city manager2020: Chris Bird, scientist2019: Paul Altheide, CEO of the Ed Rachal Foundation2018: Barbara Canales, Nueces County Judge2017: Charles Bujan, Port Aransas mayor2016: Margie C. Rose, Corpus Christi city manager2015: Suzette Quintanilla-Arriaga, Q Productions producer2014: Terry Simpson, San Patricio County judge2013: Mike Carrell, outgoing port chairman2012: Gregg Robertson, geologist involved in the discovery of the Eagle Ford Shale2011: Donna Shaver, conservationist, Kemp's ridley sea turtle advocate2010: Dusty Durrill, philanthropist, Newsmaker of Decade2009: Mark Escamilla, Del Mar College president2008: Bernard Paulson, engineer and port commissioner2007: Gloria Hicks, philanthropist2006: Freddy Fender, musician2005: Janis Jack, federal judge2004: Kathryn McDonagh, Spohn CEO2003: Trey McCampbell, banker2002: Elizabeth Chu Richter, architect2001: Irma Rangel, state representative2000: David Engel, Forward CC chairman2000: Robert Furgason, A&M-CC president, Newsmaker of Decade1999: Abe Saavedra, CCISD superintendent1998: Ed and Janet Harte, CT publisher and wife1997: Robert Furgason, A&M-CC president1996: Todd Hunter, state representative1995: Selena Quintanilla-Perez, musician1994: Richard Borchard, Nueces County judge1993: Gary Bushell, president of Corpus Christi Bay Area Economic Development Corp1992: Chris Adler, CCISD school board president1991: Mary Rhodes, Corpus Christi mayor1990: Bishop Rene H. Gracida, Corpus Christi Diocese1989: Luther Jones, former Corpus Christi mayor, Newsmaker of Decade
