It’s not unheard of for a city’s police chief to ascend to the role of city manager. However, it does seem rare when a police chief becomes the chief executive officer of one of the busiest ports in the fastest-growing region of Texas, and this may be the first time it has ever happened at the Port of Brownsville.
William Dietrich, who became the Port’s Chief of Police in 2002, was appointed interim director of the Port of Brownsville on Jan. 1, 2024, a day after former Director Eduardo Campriano stepped down, ending his 16-year tenure.
Dietrich said it was easy to get excited about the Port’s growth and looked forward to coming into his office each morning.
When Campriano announced that he was not renewing his contract, Dietrich said he decided to apply. On Aug. 7, the Port’s Board of Directors voted unanimously to appoint him as the new Port Director and CEO.
“It has been a wonderful first year,” Dietrich said. “The staff here is marvelous. They have been willing to answer my questions, and they have really helped me to do my job successfully. We have an excellent, cohesive team here at the Port of Brownsville.”
Dietrich’s goal as the Port’s director and CEO was to learn as much as he could about the Port’s nearly 90-year history and its significance to the Texas-Mexico region.
The Port of Brownsville opened in 1936 and is the only deepwater seaport on the United States-Mexico border. The Port owns 40,000 acres of land, some of which extend to the Rio Grande.
This geographical advantage gives the Port an edge in international trade, particularly with Mexico, Texas’s number one trade partner and the second trade partner of the United States.
More than 95% of commodities coming to the Port of Brownsville are exported to Mexico, which supports a wide range of industries. Many of these ship their manufactured products to the United States.
The Port brought in 17.9 million metric tons of cargo in 2024. Dietrich said projects indicate that there will be more activity at the Port in 2025.
In recent years, the Port of Brownsville has become an economic powerhouse, pumping an estimated $2 billion into the local economy and an estimated $3 billion into the state’s economy each year.
The Port of Brownsville’s activities create more than 52,000 jobs in Texas, more than 11,000 jobs in the Rio Grande Valley, and more than 6,000 jobs in Brownsville and the surrounding communities.
“The Port of Brownsville is the Valley’s economic engine,” Dietrich said. “Since January, we have about 1,000 more employed [at the port] at existing businesses such as stevedores, liquid cargo facilities — all of this with all the activity we are doing — there is something we are doing right in that we have increased our employment profile at the Port of Brownsville by 1,000 people.”
However, this does not include the nearly 2,500 jobs the Rio Grande LNG project is providing to the Port today or the 6,000 jobs the channel deepening project will create during construction, which is now closer to completion.
According to a press release, the Port of Brownsville’s Brazos Island Harbor Channel Improvement (BIH) project made progress in September, securing a low-interest $43 million loan from the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT).
This project will deepen the channel from 42 feet to 52 feet, allowing larger vessels to enter the Port and creating more economic growth for the region.
“The planning for the channel deepening has been going on for about 15 years,” Dietrich said. “This is a long process that has finally come to fruition, and in the end, we stand very strong fiscally and financially because of our partners involved [in this project].”
The partners include the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which contributed $68 million to the dredging project, and NextDecade Corporation, the Rio Grande’s parent LNG company, which provided $400 million to the project.
“So essentially, we are getting a half-billion-dollar dredge for $71 million of our dollars,” Dietrich said. “We tend to focus on Rio Grande LNG NextDecade because there’s no doubt that if we didn’t have them, then we don’t have a dredge. This is a great deal for our community. The economic opportunities from this project will be enormous, and we are already beginning to see some of that.”
Dietrich said the larger vessels will foster more growth by reducing shipping costs and lowering consumer costs.
This makes the Port an attractive option for companies that want to be closer to the United States-Mexico border, particularly advanced manufacturers looking for a true deepwater port.
Dietrich said phase 1 and phase 2 of the dredging project are underway, so both will be completed simultaneously, projected by mid-to-late 2026.
“We are hoping that this gets done quicker,” he said. “The dredging companies are very optimistic that they can do this a little quicker. We don’t want to put pen to paper on that yet, but we are hoping that this is what happens.”
