New Orleans’ Baldwin leads success of Critical Commodities Conference

James M. “Jimmy” Baldwin, manager and owner of Southern Sails of Louisiana LLC, may describe his life as “dull,” but the New Orleanian seems to be anything but. When not leading the successful Critical Commodities Conference, held each April in New Orleans, Baldwin manages to find time to expertly grill “anything that’s close to dead,” sing Beatle songs in a band called Flambeaux and join his wife in injecting life into decrepit homes. And he’s also regional honorary consul of Norway. In an exclusive interview with the American Journal of Transportation, Baldwin shares his thoughts on the conference, the unique role of New Orleans in global trade and, yes, his lack of enjoyment of golf.

You recently completed the fifth Critical Commodities Conference in New Orleans since your organization, Southern Sails of Louisiana LLC, took the helm of the event. What makes the CCC special and how have you grown the conference? It was intended first of all to be a port conference. It was very important to be a port-sponsored conference, and the Port of New Orleans owns significantly half of the conference, and they wanted to talk about commodities that are dear to them. Six years ago, when I was sort of an unpaid consultant, we started with an analysis of iron and steel, particularly import iron and steel, but then also export iron and steel. We added agribusiness to that, so that we talked about foodstuffs and feedstuffs, and we had success with that. But, in order to grow the conference, we had to branch out into more macro-sectors. Because of the increase in chemical companies on the chemical corridor between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, it was thought provident to add chemicals as a macro-group and we did that. When you say chemicals in Louisiana, you’re talking almost exclusively an export play. Since this is a shipping conference, you have to be careful that when you put things together that you have some semblance of balance. It’s important to talk about exports, because then you can flaunt it and say, “Isn’t this great what Louisiana makes.” And we did that. But we also want to talk about what Louisiana consumes, so you have to be willing to venture into all commodity aspects, whether it’s imports or exports. The last thing that we added, four or five years ago, is the macro-topic of energy. At that time, shale oil and gas exploration had started to kick up, but nobody knew what it would mean, that shale oil would begin to be so dominant in rail traffic and, to a lesser extent, barge traffic in our country. We kind of caught that wave, and that was a good wave. We took those four aspects – agribusiness, iron and steel, chemical and energy – and said let’s make those the equity players, if you will, and give them all equal publicity. The conference now has basically five keynoters or five highlighted special presentation speakers and 10 breakout sessions. The formula seems to work, so it’s grown from 250 attendees to 400 attendees, and it seems to achieve a lot of “thank you” notes in the end. The conference is still owned by the Port of New Orleans and the American Institute for International Steel, otherwise known as AAIS, and it seems to be a good formula. It seems to work and people seem to like it, every April at the Hilton Riverside. What role has your industry experience, including with Forest Lines and International Shipholding Corp., played in making the Critical Commodities Conference a success? Quite a bit. At Forest Lines, in order to learn the business, you had to know the brownwater business, which is barging, and the bluewater business, which is ocean shipping. We ran two or three ships trans-Atlantic, so that taught me geography and the tributary system in America and, very importantly, in Europe, the Rhine River and the Dutch waterways.  We were able to connect business, for example, between Natchez [Miss.] and Cologne, Germany. We were able to connect business from, say, Little Rock, Ark., going out to North Killingholme [England], which is not a port that anybody knows, but also to Selby, which is a little port that connects with the River Humber in England. So it taught me geography, it taught me barging, it taught me ocean shipping. And you get to know quite a number of port authorities, which is extremely helpful in what the CCC tries to do, because the CCC does not just want to be bluewater to bluewater. We try very, very hard to attract people from the tributary system in America, and we’ve succeeded in that. We don’t just want to be coast to coast. That, to me, is quite ordinary. The fun of it is where you work the inland aspect and get more people interested. That way, you’ll get the barge lines, which we have; the railroads, which we have, I would dare say in a very impressive manner; and the port authorities, not to mention the bluewater carriers who tote cargo on the open seas around the world. You’ve served over the years as chairman of the Port of New Orleans Board of Commissioners, president pro tem of the New Orleans Public Belt Railroad and president of the New Orleans Board of Trade. What makes New Orleans unique in the international trade arena? The river. The glue that keeps everything together and makes everything interesting in terms of the massive infrastructure that we have is the Mississippi River.  There had to be a gateway port in the river anyway. There is so much traffic on the river. We do 460 ships per month in and out, so there’s so much commerce, and there’s a lot of infrastructure built around it. The Huey P. Long Bridge, which is the foundation of what is referred to as the New Orleans Gateway, that gateway processes roughly a half million rail cars a year. So you’ve got a half million rail cars going east to west or west to east on the Huey P. Long Bridge.  You’ve got a lot of Interstate capacity here. You’ve got all the river barge carriers that trade into the fleets of New Orleans and the Lower Mississippi River. You’ve got six Class I railroads and two very good short line or terminal railroads – on the East Bank the New Orleans Public Belt and on the West Bank a very good one in the New Orleans & Gulf Coast Railway. So you’ve got all this infrastructure, and that’s something we’ve tried to build into the CCC, is to not just talk about the commodities and how they get on ships and how ships carry them around the world, but how all modes of transportation participate in every cargo. It is an amazing confluence of transportation modes, techniques and sophistication, and it all has to do with the Mississippi River. As a graduate of De La Salle High School back when it was still an all-boys school and holding your degree in business and politics from Tulane University, you truly are a native New Orleanian. What is at the heart of your love for New Orleans? It’s a city with a soul. It’s a city that still works hard and plays hard, and maybe we play a little harder than we should. But it’s a city that, when 5 o’clock comes, instead of everybody going, “Oh, I’m so tired,” people are just getting rejuvenated. People are just getting ready for the rest of the day or the rest of the night. The city also does a lot of things along the river. The river is the context that everybody has to really kind of get with. It’s not just the French Quarter. The French Quarter abuts the river. The river is the scene down here, much more so than Lake Pontchartrain. It truly is a fun city. We take our food very seriously. I think you’ll see in this town perhaps more households where both the man in the house and the woman in the house are equally good cooks. Here we have a lot of couples who can really, really cook. We cherish our food. We value our groceries in a way that almost creates a frenzy. We revel in our ability to prepare good meals.  I think anybody who misses New Orleans is not just going to say, “Aw, I miss Mardi Gras.” Typically, they miss the food before anything else. What do you like to cook up? I do all the outside grilling. I’ll cook anything that’s close to dead and do it ’til it’s done correctly. I like cooking breakfast because I’m an early morning riser, and I enjoy grilling any time of the day. You also are providing a link with Norway in your position as honorary consul of Norway for Louisiana and Mississippi, having been honored with a Royal Order of Merit First Class in that role. What does that position entail, and how are you advancing ties with Norwegian companies? The role of a consul, historically, is to do perfunctory things that are required on a routine basis, such as passports, visas, travel documents, musterings for ships, ship transfer documents and so forth. We do that, and I dare say we do that well. But, beyond that, Norway also has a wonderful rapport with the city of Houston and the energy sector. And with the energy sector, with all of the advances made in shale oil and shale gas and liquefied natural gas, Norway has an increasing rapport with the great state of Louisiana. The difference between Louisiana and Texas is that Texas’ energy corridor is centralized in Houston, whereas you couldn’t say that there is really an axis point in the state of Louisiana. We’re all over the place. Typically, energy is spoken to on [U.S.] Highway 90 and Interstate 10, anywhere as you travel from Lake Charles east all the way to New Orleans and into Slidell.  We do a lot in energy here, and the Norwegian companies, Norwegian capital, Norwegian ideas, Norwegian energy sector is very interested to establish a better rapport with like-minded business in Louisiana, and I think you’ll see more of that. There are two energy-related groups that are sponsored by the Kingdom of Norway. One is called INTSOK, which is the Norwegian oil and gas partners, superbly run by John Hurter, based in Houston. And there’s a group called Innovation Norway, based in Houston, which helps young Norwegian companies spawn their ideas and then migrate their ideas into other locales. So we work quietly to bring more Norwegian capital to the Mississippi River, but not just to the river but other off-river locations, such as Lake Charles and Lafayette. We work at the pleasure of the Norwegian government, and we very much enjoy doing this. Who would you say is your personal hero and why? Two of them. The first would be Herb Kelleher, the former chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines, because he made business fun, and I think that’s remarkable.  And the other is my father-in-law, Erik Johnsen. He was my boss for many years, and he taught me the value of hard work, and I’m deeply appreciative for his teaching. He was the president and later chairman of the board of International Shipholding, and he brought me under his wing and taught me one heckuva lot about the shipping business – one of the best teachers, one of the best vessel operators, maybe the best vessel operator in the entire United States of America, just an incredible man. You’re a mighty busy guy, but when you do get away from work, what floats your boat? Not much. I could use a hobby, I’ll tell you that.  I do have a couple of interests. One is music. I sing in a band called Flambeaux, which we formed about 10 years ago just because, as I mentioned, I had nothing to do, and I had to come up with something. We sing Beatles tunes and things like that. Another thing that Karen – my wife of 36 years – and I have done is residential renovations. We enjoy taking decrepit homes and injecting life into them. She’s a superb renovator. What I’m supposed to say here is that I enjoy playing golf, but I play it but I don’t enjoy it. I enjoy renovating and I like music, and that’s about it. I lead a dull life.