Hiring a port director

David Zahniser reports in the Daily Breeze on the search for a new executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. Not that it's a hard job or anything:

Help wanted: a hands-on executive with extensive port experience.

Must be capable of transforming an entire industry -- that is, convincing the Harbor Area's shippers, truckers and railroads -- to convert to clean-burning fuels, all while dodging verbal darts from angry activists and appointees of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa....

The winning candidate will step into a pressure-cooker atmosphere, with newly appointed Harbor Commission President S. David Freeman simultaneously pushing for port expansion and demanding that the staff pursue everything from electrified trucks to a magnetically powered rail line to reduce air pollution.

Zahniser says the harbor commission has whittled the list to no more than eight finalists. Among them is Tay Yoshitani, the number two executive at the port under former mayors Tom Bradley and Richard Riordan.