Micah Mallace has been president and CEO of South Carolina Ports since the fall of 2025, but the seeds for his career began germinating long ago, when he was in college.
As a College of Charleston student, Mallace participated in a Study at Sea program in which he traveled to several continents and got a close-up view of operations at ports around the world.
A Chicago native, Mallace and his classmates traveled on a well-equipped cruise ship, but they often stopped at heavily industrial ports, where he gained a new appreciation for living in a First World country.
“Outside of the gates of those ports, in a lot of the countries that we visited, there was abject poverty. And no future,” Mallace recalled in a recent interview at his Charleston office at the Wando Welch Terminal. “And it struck me that a port can be a generator of economic activity, can help put people to work, and those people can put food on the table for their families. Or if you come back to the U.S., it can do the same thing.”
After college, Mallace worked in hospitality and as a leasing consultant before earning his MBA in finance, also from College of Charleston.
In 2011, soon after receiving his graduate degree, Mallace joined SC Ports as regional sales manager and spent the next 11 years there, working in such roles as chief commercial officer and director of strategic projects before moving on to Harbor Logistics, where he served as president before returning to SC Ports last year.
Mallace describes his role at Harbor Logistics as “investing in supply chain infrastructure, bringing deals, putting those deals together, and then running the company.”
His role at SC Ports includes oversight of the ports’ facilities in Charleston, including Wando Welch, the largest terminal, moving around 80 percent of the ports’ annual volume; the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal, the newest terminal, which recently announced a temporary closure; and the North Charleston Terminal, which handles around 22 percent of the ports’ annual volume. He also manages the inland ports in Dillon and Greer.
The three ports have a total of 722 employees, Mallace said.
According to the SC Ports’ 2024 annual report, the ports have an annual impact of $87 billion, with the highest regional impact occurring in the Upstate, at $44.08 billion.
Earlier this year, the South Carolina Daily Gazette reported the State Ports Authority wanted to cut labor costs at its Leatherman Terminal so more container ships would be willing to use the $1.5 billion facility that’s operated by an all-union workforce.
The Gazette reported the initiative was part of the authority’s larger effort to rein in costs and boost cargo as the Port of Charleston and other U.S. seaports “are going through a reset,” Mallace told the Senate Transportation Committee.
While Charleston, Dillon, and Greer are different cities with distinct roles in the ports’ operation, Mallace doesn’t see them as separate entities.
“We kind of view it all as one in a sense. We're all one family. We're all one team. We're all pulling on one oar, trying to move in the right direction.”
The inland ports depend on railroad partners, while the Charleston port is more dependent on ships and trucking, and the number of containers handled at each facility is different – more than 1 million per year in Charleston compared to around 50,000 in Dillon and around 150,000 in Greer.
Some of SC Ports’ biggest clients are Walmart, which has a 3 million-square-foot distribution center in Ridgeville, as well as BMW and Mercedes-Benz Vans.
Having those connections helps the port attract other clients, Mallace said.
“They really motivate the shipping lines to call our port. So though they are indirect customers, we really view them as our most important commercial interests,” he said.
Mallace has been on the job long enough now to have developed his vision for the organization, and it’s all about growth.
The industry, he said, “has seen multiple years now of contraction and is forecasted to see at least another year, or a couple, of contraction. And contraction is not fun. That's when you have to make hard decisions on cost and restrict the things that you really want to do. And we want to buck the trend, and we want to grow where maybe the port industry isn't growing. And if the port industry is growing, then we want to outpace that growth.”
There’s no such thing as a “typical day” at the port, said Mallace, whose job encompasses many areas. “It changes every day,” especially since he might be in Charleston one day and Dillon or Greer on another.
And of course, there’s the weather to consider. If a hurricane is heading toward the Lowcountry, the 150-foot-plus cranes must be tied down, and the empty containers need to be secured. Port officials work with the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, and state and local governments to make sure the facilities are prepared for whatever category of storm might arrive, he said.
One thing that’s distinct about his job as CEO is that “the role is ever-changing. Whereas if you are the chief financial officer, there's very clear things that need to get done. If you're the chief operational officer, there's very clear things that need to get done. If you run HR, the day-to-day changes, but the underlying work is kind of clear. I think that the CEO of any company needs to look at the needs of the company in relation to the market that it serves, in relation to the obstacles that it faces, and determine where does one's time, brainpower, and capacity, where does that need to be allocated.”
Mallace said he views his duties in terms of “buckets” – one bucket is serving the maritime community, while other buckets include the South Carolina community and the manufacturing and distribution companies the ports serve.
Mallace said it can be difficult to overcome the misconception held by some in South Carolina of the “big, bad port,” an organization that exists to boost the fortunes of the Lowcountry while ignoring other regions of the state.
But in reality, the mission is to boost all areas of the Palmetto State, as well as the Southeast region as a whole, he said.
“The benefits that we create are really felt statewide. The economic development, the job creation is felt statewide. That's been empirically analyzed and is very clear. And frankly, Southeast-wide. But the impacts of our business are primarily felt here in Charleston. And Charleston is this wonderful, diverse economy where it's not just the port that everyone depends on.”
He noted that Charleston’s economy isn’t just about tourism, but also encompasses tech, manufacturing, and more.
And the ports are an important factor in encouraging economic investment in the Palmetto State, Mallace said.
“The Department of Commerce does a phenomenal job in recruiting companies to locate here, and they call on partners like us to support,” he said.
The job isn’t without its challenges, however, whether it’s an incoming hurricane or economic headwinds.
Recent tariffs have had a negative impact, and ports around the country have seen declines in the amount of cargo they handle, Mallace said.
“Our customers anecdotally tell us not to expect much incremental volume for the balance of this year, and are scratching their heads about next year. And so when there is uncertainty in business, people retrench. They stop making decisions. … What we're saying is, if the market's down, then we need to find a way to be up. If the market's up, then we need to find a way to be up by double what the market's doing.”
All in all, though, SC Ports enjoys “tremendous state support,” Mallace said.
“The residents of the state are really fortunate that the legislature, the governor's office, etc., really, really cares about the port,” he said. “We are the economic driver of the state. There is no close second. I mean, it is empirically clear, and we carry that weight, we carry that responsibility with tremendous sincerity. … I think the majority of the state residents see benefit in the port.”
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