If you had to pick one person who has the most influence over the local economy, who would it be? It's an easier question on the national level: The president sets his goals, but we also try to decipher the utterances of the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Who at the regional level shapes our economy? The governor certainly is one, but another would be the chief executive of the Port of Seattle.

Whoever leads Seattle's port oversees a vast, powerful organization that is crucial to a robust Washington economy. Though the Port of Tacoma is equally important for container shipping, the Port of Seattle also manages the international airport, the homeport for the fishing industry, and a significant collection of real estate holdings. What's more, the Seattle port gets involved in workforce development, transportation policy and increasingly, industry's response to global warming. Consider the situation of Anderson Hay & Grain of Ellensburg, which each week sends 250-300 containers to the port of Seattle or Tacoma, getting hay to cattle growers in Asia. If Anderson's trucks are delayed at or near the harbor, production is halted on the other side of the Cascades.

Given the importance of the Port of Seattle, I made an appointment to meet its new boss, Tay Yoshitani, hoping for insights about his direction for the agency and our economy. Yoshitani, 60, was hired in late March by the five-member port commission. Though other candidates might have been successful running an airport or a seaport or developing real estate,

Yoshitani has done it all at the ports of Los Angeles, Baltimore and most recently, Oakland. He also worked in industry as an adviser to the National Association of Waterfront Employers. For added luster, he's a West Point graduate with an MBA from Harvard. And for pure sentiment, you can't beat the story of Yoshitani's first visit to Seattle, in 1954, as a 7-year-old immigrant from Japan.

In person, Yoshitani is a dramatic departure in style from his predecessor, Mic Dinsmore. Where Yoshitani is understated and gentle in demeanor, the burly Dinsmore was assertive, charming and given to bruising handshakes.

Fifteen years ago, Dinsmore was hired as the guy to calm things down, following an energetic period under Zeger van Asch van Wijck, who came from the Port of Rotterdam and pushed a series of reorganizations. Today, that seems to be the undercurrent around Yoshitani, who is not being advertised as a change agent. "I think he's looking for the commission for direction, and that's appropriate," says Port Commissioner Alec Fisken.

Though Yoshitani is wise to go slow, build up his power base and not feud publicly with commissioners as Dinsmore did, the new CEO gives few hints about his preferences. Speaking about his overall philosophy, he says, "It's simple. You leverage on your strengths." In Baltimore, he concluded that the port's fundamental goal - to become a major container port - was wrong. Other ports had the advantage, so he argued for investment in the less glamorous business of "roll on, roll off " shipping, in which trucks drive cargo into vessels.

A willingness to focus tightly on strengths could signal a change at the Seattle port, once a bread-and-butter institution catering to shipping companies and airlines. That changed when the port jumped into the real estate business. The port bought a large chunk of Seattle's central waterfront and created Bell Harbor. It also announced plans to redevelop 57 acres near Piers 90 and 91 at Interbay. More recently, Dinsmore threw his support to a proposed complex swap in which the port would buy a rail line for a trail and swap it with King County for ownership of Boeing Field. Whether all of this represents prudent bets to diversify the region's economy, or dubious distractions from core businesses, is a subject of continuing debate by the five port commissioners. But in picking Yoshitani, the commission found the rare port executive who knows real estate.