Standing Watch

Virginia Maritime Association Helps Industry Members Prepare for 2025 and Beyond

by Eric J. Wallace

By Eric Wallace

The Virginia Maritime Association (VMA) has spent more than a century working behind-the-scenes to grow and support one of the planet’s most booming maritime economies. Widely known as “the voice of Virginia’s port industries,” the consortium now includes 450-plus member companies that together employ more than 70,000 people.

Here, we catch up with VMA Executive Director David White to talk about the association and the trends it’s monitoring for 2025 and beyond.

Responses have been edited for clarity and length.

Tell us a bit about the VMA and its mission?

Conditions are always changing for Virginia’s maritime industry. Since 1920, the VMA has worked to position our port and member businesses so they can grow and thrive amid evolving conditions. We use three words to explain how we achieve that goal: Connect, Inform, Represent.

We connect members by helping them form stronger, deeper connections with one another through events, meetings and other communications. We also help connect them with regulatory agencies and lawmakers.

We keep member groups informed through high-quality business intelligence and updates around new grant opportunities, changes occurring in the regulatory space, legislative developments, and more. We do that through channels like regular committee meetings, forums, publications, direct emails and newsletters.

Lastly, we advocate. The VMA seeks to educate regulators and lawmakers about the concerns and interests of our member companies and help them make decisions that focus on the things they want to address in a manner that allows our member companies and maritime economy to thrive.

What is the VMA watching and thinking during the ongoing contract negotiations between the International Longshoremen’s Association and United States Maritime Alliance?

There’s been steady news coverage about these negotiations, but something that may not be obvious for people who aren’t directly involved with the maritime industry is that the ILA represents longshore workers from Maine to Texas. That means the outcome of these negotiations will impact all of the ports on the East and Gulf Coasts, not just ours.

While we don’t play a role in negotiations, the VMA is keeping our membership informed about how things are progressing. The trade publications are running lots of articles about the status of negotiations, but our approach is to help members find the information coming directly from the ILA and USMA, which are the two parties involved.

For instance, as both sides issue position statements, we make sure our members receive those statements. If the negotiations result in any impacts to port operations, we make sure our membership has the information they need to plan accordingly.

There seems to be a lot of uncertainty around the new president, single-party control in Washington and changes in geopolitical dynamics. Can you give us the VMA’s perspective on all of this?

Right now there’s a lot of speculation about what may occur. But we’re not going to take any positions or actions based on speculation and what may happen.

The new administration is beginning to take shape and we’re keeping our ear to the ground, monitoring areas that may be of concern for our membership. Obviously our industry has multiple federal agencies that we interact with. As the new heads of those agencies come into place and signal possible changes, we’ll be communicating our interests and determine based on what we’re seeing if we need to advocate for any specific approaches.

In terms of priorities, as we like to tell people with regard to our industry—which drives the state and regional economy—it all begins and ends with the ability of ships to come and go. So we’re keeping a close eye, for instance, on things that may affect the Army Corps of Engineers, particularly how they’re resourced to keep channels open and advancing our priority projects. The same is true for the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection, and other agencies we rely on because if their ability to execute missions is impeded, that effects port performance.

What is the VMA watching as dredging projects coincide making Hampton Roads home to the East Coast’s widest and deepest port?

The VMA is very proud of our contributions to initiate this project and to the work we’ve done with the Virginia Port Authority and Army Corps of Engineers to get it authorized, fully funded, and on track for completion. We are also very grateful for the consistent support received over multiple gubernatorial administrations, changing legislatures, and our congressional delegation.

Combined with recently added capacity and world-class service, this change is one that is certain to elevate Virginia’s competitive position and attract more cargo and port-related economic development ahead of other ports.

Having the deepest channels on the East Coast will position our port to receive more first-in and last-out vessel calls. This will make Virginia more attractive to manufacturers and big volume shippers. VMA is working to make sure we have the business ready sites and freight transportation assets to win those business opportunities.

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