HOUSTON, June 24, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- By unanimous vote, Houston City Council has reappointed Kase Lawal to the Port Commission of the Port of Houston Authority for a sixth term. Initially appointed in June 1999, Lawal was the first vice chairman of the Port Commission. PHA commissioners serve two-year terms without pay.
A photo accompanying this release is available at http://media.globenewswire.com/poha/pages/exec.html
"We look forward to continuing our work with Commissioner Lawal," said PHA Chairman Jim Edmonds. "He is a well-respected leader in the international business community. We value his dedication to the Commission, in particular as a supporter of education and small business development."
Lawal is chairman of PHA's Small Business Development Task Force.
"I am honored to represent the city of Houston as a Port of Houston Authority commissioner," said Lawal. "And I am grateful for the confidence City Council has again demonstrated in me with this reappointment. I have thoroughly enjoyed my decade of service on the Port Commission and remain a dedicated steward of our city and port."
Houston Mayor Bill White remarked, "Kase Lawal is a proven leader with the international business acumen necessary to help our port grow."
City Council Member M.J. Khan, who nominated Lawal for the re-appointment, emphasized the need for his continued involvement on the Port Commission. "He is a solid leader and a committed citizen and I am pleased he will continue his outstanding service on the Port Commission that does so much for our area," Khan said.
City Council Member Wanda Adams praised Lawal's business skills. "It is with great pleasure that the City of Houston welcomes Kase Lawal back to serve the Port of Houston Authority, which serves the greater Houston area," said Adams. "His expertise and talents as a brilliant businessman will continue to manage the imports, exports and commerce that are the port authority, which is synonymous with Houston."
Lawal is chairman and chief executive officer of CAMAC International Corporation, a multi-national energy corporation that earned $2.43 billion in revenue in 2008. CAMAC and its affiliates are engaged in oil and gas exploration and production, engineering services and crude oil and natural gas trading for worldwide markets. CAMAC has consistently ranked on the Forbes Magazine list of the 400 largest privately-owned corporations in the United States and on the Black Enterprise Magazine list as the second largest African-American owned company in the United States. In 2006, CAMAC was named the Company of the Year by Black Enterprise Magazine. Lawal is also the chairman of Allied Energy Corporation. Lawal is a significant stakeholder in Unity National Bank, the only federally insured and licensed African-American-owned bank in Texas, and also serves as vice chairman of the bank's board of directors.
Lawal brings a rich and extensive history of civic service to his port position. He was appointed to the United States Trade Advisory Committee on Africa, reporting to President Bill Clinton, and was the U.S. Trade Representative on trade policy in Africa. He is a former member of the United States Council on the Business Development Committee of the U.S.- South Africa Binational Commission and the Board of Directors of the Corporate Council on Africa in Washington, D.C. He is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the World Trade Council of the Greater Houston Partnership.
In 2003, Lawal established a $1 million endowment at Texas Southern University to establish the Kase and Eileen Lawal Center for Global Trade at Jesse H. Jones School of Business. In 1992, he established a petroleum engineering endowment at the University of Houston's Cullen College of Engineering to benefit graduate petroleum engineering students. Lawal serves as the director of the Cullen Engineering Research Foundation and as a trustee for The Kinkaid School, which is a leading college preparatory school. He also co-chairs Unite for Children, United Against AIDS, a $300-million-dollar UNICEF campaign with his wife Eileen Lawal.
Lawal is a graduate of Texas Southern University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and later obtained a master's degree in business administration, finance and marketing from Prairie View A&M University of Texas. He was awarded honorary doctorates in from Fort Valley State University and Texas Southern University.
The Port of Houston Authority owns and operates the public facilities located along the Port of Houston, the 25-mile-long complex of diversified public and private facilities designed for handling general cargo, containers, grain and other dry bulk materials, project and heavy lift cargo, and other types of cargo. Each year, there are more than 8,000 vessel calls at the port, which ranks first in the U.S. in foreign waterborne tonnage and second in overall total tonnage. The port authority plays a vital role in ensuring navigational safety along the Houston Ship Channel, which has been instrumental in Houston's development as a center of international trade. The Barbours Cut Container Terminal and Central Maintenance Facility are the first of any U.S. port facilities to develop and implement an innovative Environmental Management System that meets the rigorous standards of ISO 14001. The second recertification of those facilities in 2009 included an extension for the state-of-the-art Bayport Container Terminal. PHA is the first port authority in the world to receive ISO 28000:2007 certification for Port Police and the perimeter security operations at both the Barbours Cut and Bayport Terminals. Additionally, the port is an approved delivery point for Coffee "C" futures contracts traded on the New York Board of Trade's Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange. For more information, please visit www.portofhouston.com
To access the port's Web site photo gallery, please visit http://www.portofhouston.com/publicrelations/publicrelations.html and click the link for PHA Photo Gallery.
The Port of Houston Authority logo is available at http://www.globenewswire.com/newsroom/prs/?pkgid=720
