The Waterways Journal
21 April 2008
Barry Palmer, who led the successful lobbying group DINAMO for 22 years and then oversaw the creation of Waterways Council Inc., has announced he will retire at the end of this year from his position as president and chief executive officer of WCI.
Dan Mecklenborg, WCI chairman, announced April 11 that an executive search has begun to identify a successor. WCI’s executive committee has retained JDG Associates Ltd., Rockville, Md, to conduct the national search for a successor for Palmer. A search committee to evaluate both internal and external candidates, led by Mecklenborg, has been organized and is composed of WCI executive committee members Rick Calhoun, president of Cargo Carriers; Mark Knoy, president of AEP MEMCO LLC; Merritt Lane, president and chief executive officer of Canal Barge Company; Berdon Lawrence, chairman of the board, Kirby Corporation; Pete Lilly, president-coal group, CONSOL Energy Inc.; and Rodney Weinzierl, executive director of the Illinois Corn Growers Association.
"It is nearly impossible to envision Waterways Council without Barry Palmer as its leader," Mecklenborg said in the announcement. "Barry has been the face, as well as the heart and soul, of inland navigation advocacy for more than 25 years. While his colleagues and friends will wish him the very best in his upcoming retirement, it will seem like the end of an era without Barry at the helm of our organization.
"Fortunately, Barry will be with us through the balance of 2008 and will assist in transitioning his successor into (his or her) new role. Additionally, WCI has an extremely talented staff that is poised to support Barry’s successor and advance the inland navigation mission going forward."
Palmer began his career in the waterways industry in May 1981
as executive director of DINAMO, the Association for the
Development of Inland Navigation in America’s Ohio
Valley. During his 22-year tenure with DINAMO, Palmer
provided strong advocacy for construction authorization of
waterway infrastructure projects on the Ohio River and its
tributaries. These included Robert C. Byrd, Ohio River;
Grays Landing and Point Marion, Monongahela River;
Winfield, Kanawha River; Olmsted Lock and Dam and McAlpine,
Ohio River; Lower Mon 2, 3 & 4; Marmet and London,
Kanawha River; Kentucky Lock, Tennessee River; and Greenup
and John T. Myers auxiliary chamber extensions. Also
included was major rehabilitation of Emsworth, Dashields,
and Montgomery Locks
and Dam in the mid 1980s.
In June 2003, Palmer went to Washington to help create Waterways Council Inc., a new national organization that grew out of Waterways Work!—a campaign focused on advocating for modernized waterways infrastructure—and DINAMO. Highlights of Palmer’s leadership success at WCI include increased funding of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ budgets for priority projects for the inland waterways system, spending down of the ballooning surplus in the Inland Waterways Trust Fund, the merger of the Midwest Area River Coalition 2000 into WCI, and the historic passage of WRDA 2007 authorizing modernization of the Upper Mississippi and Illinois rivers. Waterways Council Inc. has an annual budget of $2.2 million with more than 240 members.