Mic Dinsmore's departure this month after 16 years as CEO of the Port of Seattle is likely the end of an era on Pier 69, the port's lavish headquarters. For many critics of this beleaguered port, his replacement in the form of Tay Yoshitani, a Harvard-trained West Point graduate hired unanimously by the Port Commission, comes not a sewage-belching cruise ship too soon.

"Mic hasn't always been good at developing his management team," says a diplomatic John Creighton, elected to the five-member commission in 2005 and named its president earlier this year. "We haven't done a strategic plan in - I don't know - how many years?"

Alec Fisken, the acknowledged maverick of the five-member commission, calls Seattle "the worst-managed seaport in North America." Says Fisken: "There was never any focus on financial performance during Dinsmore's tenure."

The mismanagement of the port's real estate efforts, including the proffering of numerous no-bid contracts, has been the subject of lengthy investigative stories by the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Today, the port faces an array of challenges, including poor financial performance, competition, money-losing real estate ventures, the gentrification of the waterfront and, perhaps most challenging of all, a looming air pollution crisis. Yoshitani, with experience at three major port authorities, may be uniquely suited to pilot Seattle into the 21st century and make sure it joins other West Coast ports poised to catch a lucrative ride on the coming wave of trans-Pacific trade.

In Los Angeles, for example, Yoshitani worked tirelessly on environmental as well as community issues and understands the air pollution crisis threatening the twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles. In Oakland, a port that, like Seattle's, manages the regional airport, he oversaw real estate holdings. In Baltimore, Creighton says, Yoshitani turned around a stagnating seaport, virtually saving the operation.

One issue expected to grow more contentious is the Port of Seattle's dependence on taxes. In 2007, King County taxpayers will bolster port operations with $68 million in subsidies. In comparison, Tacoma, which handles more cargo, receives only about $14 million a year in public money. And a badly handled real estate project along Seattle's central waterfront has helped boost the port's total debt to $3 billion, though most of this is tied to expansion of Sea-Tac International Airport. "As the central waterfront development shows, the port is a rotten real estate developer," Fisken says.

Some longtime observers believe one way to ease the financial pressures on Washington ports is to increase cooperation among them. Dave Gering, executive director of the Manufacturing Council of Greater Seattle, says both ports are "awful" when it comes to cooperating. "Tacoma - they wake up every morning wondering how they can steal something else from Seattle. And Seattle - they wake up half an hour later and wonder how they're going to get that promotion they've been hoping to finagle."

With the Port of Tacoma projecting 51 percent growth over the next five years, and the Port of Seattle expecting 5 percent to 8 per- cent annual growth, Fisken argues that demand for port services and container space along the West Coast will exceed capacity, providing less reason for the ports to take customers from each other. If the port manages its operations well, says Fisken, a former investment banker, it should continue to be an important engine of growth for the region without having to turn over its valuable waterfront real estate to developers. In Washington, one job in three is related to trade, in part because each container passing through our ports leaves a trail of jobs, many of them well-paying. The average job at the Port of Tacoma, for example, pays 41 percent more than the average job in Pierce County. Both Dinsmore and Tim Farrell, Tacoma's executive director, often say the network of port-related industries here generally equals another Boeing or Microsoft.