Commission | Home

Agendas, Minutes & Videos

Commissioner Biographies

Committees

Meeting Schedule

Ticket Reporting Policy

The Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners oversees the management and operation of the Port of Los Angeles, the number one port in the nation, ranked by container volume. The five-member board is appointed by the Mayor of Los Angeles and confirmed by the Los Angeles City Council. The commissioners serve five-year terms and elections are held every July for the offices of president and vice president.

---

President Cindy Miscikowski

 

Cindy Miscikowski was appointed to the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and elected president of the Board in July 2009.  She served as member of the Los Angeles City Council from 1997 to 2005, after having been chief of staff to Councilmember Marvin Braude over 20 years. She has been involved in public service for over 35 years in the City of Los Angeles. 

Miscikowski is widely recognized as an authority on urban planning, revitalizing the City’s land-use policies and spearheading the adoption of a new master plan for the Los Angeles International Airport in 2005.  She also authored two pioneering voter-approved initiatives, one banning oil drilling on the city’s coastline in 1988 and another, imposing density limitations in most of the City’s commercially zoned land in 1986. She also played a crucial role in the preservation of thousands of acres of open space in the Santa Monica Mountains for public park and recreation uses.

Miscikowski served as Chair of the Council’s Public Safety Committee for five years, where she led  the efforts to streamline the recruitment and hiring of police officers, implement the reforms of the federal Consent Decree at the Los Angeles Police Department, and insure the funding for full paramedic resources at all Los Angeles Fire Stations. In addition, her public policy expertise includes budget oversight, municipal finance and advocacy of citizen participation in government process.

Miscikowski received a degree from UCLA in political science in 1970 and has been involved in a number of nonprofit organizations serving of boards of director since leaving the City Council, including the Los Angeles Police Foundation, Los Angeles Music Center for the Performing Arts, Genesis Los Angeles and Center for Governmental Studies.

Awards:

• 2008 - UCLA Alumni Award for Excellence in Public Service
• 2005 - UCLA Local Legislator of the Year Award
• 2005 - Ira E. Yellin Community Leadership Award, American Jewish Committee, Los Angeles Chapter
• 2001 - Distinguished Leadership Award for Elected Officials, American Planning Association, Southern California
• 1986 - Award of Excellence for Outstanding Service, American Institute of Architects, San Fernando Valley Section
  

---

Vice President David Arian

 

Commissioner David Arian was appointed to the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and confirmed by the Los Angeles City Council on October 13, 2010. Arian has been a fixture on the Harbor waterfront as a union worker, labor leader and supporter of many community organizations. He is a proud and active resident of the San Pedro and Harbor Area.

Arian began his career as a longshoreman in 1965 and has been an active member of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union since then. He served as an officer of the ILWU Local 13 many times, including three stints as Local President. In 1991, he was elected International President of the ILWU. Following his term, he returned to the docks at the Port of Los Angeles where he worked until his retirement in 2009. Since then, Arian has served as President of the Harry Bridges Institute, a San Pedro-based non-profit dedicated to community organization.

Arian has been an active member of the San Pedro community for decades, from opening the San Pedro Community Action Center in 1966 to his more recent support of organizations like Toberman Settlement House, Harbor Interfaith Shelter and the San Pedro Boys & Girls Club. In 2006, Mayor Villaraigosa asked him to sit on the joint port advisory for the Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach’s Clean Air Action Plan.

Arian is a proud citizen of San Pedro and the Harbor Area. Growing up on 8th Street in San Pedro, he attended Cabrillo Elementary, Dana Jr. High and San Pedro High. He played at the San Pedro Boys Club, an organization he still supports today.

Dave has two children, a son Sean and a daughter Justine, and two grandchildren, Jadyn Rose and Destan. 

---

Commissioner Robin Kramer

 

Robin Kramer was appointed to the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and confirmed by the Los Angeles City Council on October 13, 2010. Kramer has been a public servant in Los Angeles for more than three decades, combining her love of and commitment to the community with varied experience in the public, private, philanthropic and nonprofit sectors.

Kramer served as Chief of Staff to both Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (from 2005 – 2009) and Mayor Richard Riordan (where she began service as Deputy Mayor and was Chief of Staff from 1994 -1997) -- the first woman to serve in this post.

From 2003 to 2005, Kramer was Senior Director at The Broad Foundation, working there to dramatically improve student performance and achievement in the nation's largest urban school systems. Beginning in 1998, Kramer divided her time between service as the California Community Foundation’s first Senior Fellow and as an independent management and organization consultant for public, private and nonprofit sector clients. Kramer was Senior Vice President at Marathon Communications from 1991 to 1993, and from 1981 to 1985, served as Executive Director of the Coro Foundation, the 68 year-old, non-partisan civic affairs leadership training organization.

Kramer previously worked for two members of the City Council who represented the Eastside and parts of the San Fernando Valley, respectively --as Chief Deputy for Councilman Richard Alatorre (1985 to 1990) and for Councilman Bob Ronka (1978 to 1981).

From 1976 to 1978, she was Director of the Democratic Party of Southern California, and a part-time teacher at the Harvard School during those same years.

Kramer holds a BA in Political Studies and Journalism from Pitzer College and an MA in Urban Studies from Occidental College. She is the first Pitzer alumna to chair its Board of Trustees. Robin and Neil Kramer live in Los Angeles and have three sons, Ben, Daniel and Gabe.

---

Commissioner Douglas P. Krause

 

Douglas P. Krause was appointed to the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and confirmed by Los Angeles City Council on September 9, 2005.

Krause and his fellow Los Angeles Harbor Commissioners partnered with the Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners and took unprecedented action by approving the landmark San Pedro Bay Ports Clean Air Action Plan in November 2006. The Clean Air Action Plan provides a comprehensive strategy for reducing air emissions from port operations by nearly 50 percent over a period of five years. Their efforts yielded the first joint meeting of the leaders of the two ports since the 1920s and the first-ever public meeting of the two Boards on November 20, 2006, the day the Plan was approved.

Krause serves as executive vice president, chief risk officer, and general counsel in the Los Angeles headquarters of East West Bank. In this role, he is closely involved with trade finance and export-import issues. His responsibilities also include oversight of risk management, corporate governance processes and code of ethics; Institutional Shareholder Services rates East West Bank’s governance processes in top 1 percent of companies.

Before joining East West Bank, Krause was corporate senior vice president and general counsel of Metrobank from 1991 to 1996. Prior to that, he worked for the law firms of Dewey Ballantine, and Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue, where he specialized in financial services.

Krause has lived in Los Angeles for the past 20 years. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Carleton College before receiving his juris doctor from Columbia Law School, where he was editor of the Law Review.

---

Commissioner Dr. Sung Won Sohn

 

Dr. Sung Won Sohn was appointed to the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and confirmed by Los Angeles City Council on July 22, 2011.

Dr. Sohn is currently an Endowed Professor of Economics for the Martin V. Smith School of Business & Economics at California State University Channel Islands, and Vice Chairman of Forever 21, a multi-national retailer. Previously, he was President and Chief Executive Officer of Los Angeles-based Hanmi Bank. From 1998 to 2005, he was the Executive Vice President and Chief Economic Officer at Wells Fargo Banks where he was responsible for macro-economic forecasting, monetary policy and regulatory matters.

Born and raised in South Korea, Dr. Sohn came to the United States after completing high school. He was named one of the five best economic forecasters in the country by the Wall Street Journal in 2010. In 2002, he was named to TIME Magazine's Board of Economists and was previously selected by Bloomberg News as one of the five most accurate forecasters in the United States.

Dr. Sohn holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of a book, “Global Financial Crisis and Exit Strategy.”