MOUNT PLEASANT — The S.C. State Ports Authority has named its next president and CEO, bringing back its former top sales executive from the private sector to lead the maritime agency.
Micah Mallace, a College of Charleston graduate who left the SPA for a private-sector job about three years ago, is expected to start almost immediately.
The board voted to approve his hiring at a special board meeting on Oct. 6. They also agreed to a five-year contract at $525,000 for the position, which Mallace will fill Oct. 13.
Mallace has been president of North Charleston-based trucking and warehousing business Harbor Logistics since November 2022.
He replaces Barbara Melvin, who resigned unexpectedly in August. She was succeeded temporarily by Phil Padgett, the SPA’s chief financial officer who had previously stated he wasn’t a candidate for the top job.
According to Harbor Logistics’ website, Mallace developed a passion for international trade “while circumnavigating the globe on a study-abroad program that took him through ports across Asia, India, Africa and Latin America.”
Earlier in his career, Mallace worked for a major ski resort operator and was a leasing consultant for a multifamily real estate developer before joining the SPA in 2011 as regional sales director.
After a series of promotions, he was named chief commercial officer in early 2021, putting him in charge of all sales and customer accounts.
Among his biggest successes was his recruitment of Walmart’s $220 million import center that the retail giant opened in Ridgeville three years ago.
The Mount Pleasant resident left to take the Harbor Logistics job in November 2022, a few months after Melvin was elevated to chief executive officer to succeed the retired Jim Newsome, who Mallace has described as being a “mentor” shortly before he joined the SPA, while he was earning his MBA.
Before Monday, the ports authority board met twice behind closed doors to discuss how it would fill its vacant top management slot. It released no details from those meetings.
Mallace is returning to the SPA about three weeks before the 2025 “State of the Ports” speech that Melvin was scheduled to deliver to the maritime community on Oct. 28, followed immediately by the S.C. International Trade Conference to be held on Kiawah Island through Oct. 30.
He has an undergraduate degree in global logistics and supply chain management and a master’s in business administration with a concentration in finance, both from the College of Charleston.