Roger Guenther: 2025 Maritime Leader of the Year
The Greater Houston Port Bureau named Roger Guenther, immediate past executive director of Port Houston, as our 2025 Maritime Leader of the Year. The Port Bureau’s board of directors selected Roger as this year’s honoree for his unwavering commitment to the growth and success of maritime industry during his more than 35 years in the port community.
Roger is a native to the port region, having been born and raised in Baytown. Despite the near proximity of port operations and close family involvement in related industry – his grandfather worked at the Humble docks in Baytown and his father was a supervisor at Gulf/Amoco/Chevron plant – Roger did not have early interest in the maritime industry. His earliest ideas centered around values. His parents emphasized faith, family, and friends as
well as a strong work ethic. These concepts shaped Roger’s earliest ideas about career. His father arranged summer jobs for Roger and his brother, bagging plastics by hand, grappling, and pushing the plastics into pallets with forklifts. While its value as an export was not top-of-mind, the importance of responsibility, commitment and teamwork was stressed.
Early in his life, Roger’s father pointed to engineering as career for Roger as he excelled in math and science at school. He counts himself fortunate that both he and his brother were able to attend college as it was an opportunity his parents didn’t have. He enjoyed studying for his degree as a mechanical engineering at Texas A&M University, graduating in 1983. Initially he worked for a German crane manufacturer, one of the two companies he worked for during his career. Four years in, Roger received a call from a friend saying Port Houston was seeking a mechanical crane engineer at Barbours Cut, located just a few miles from his home.
“I fell into the maritime industry and worked at Port Houston for 37 years,” Roger said.
He soon found great mentors in the mechanics and electricians that worked for him. Roger learned from them, and the longshoremen told him how to get things done. When he became Executive Director in 2014, Roger relied on these early lessons as he assumed new responsibilities.
Roger’s career at Port Houston has been on an eventful journey that has included landmark milestones for Port Houston. In the mid-90s, he led the transformation of a green field into becoming Bayport Terminal and redeveloped Barbours Cut Terminal as part of Port Houston’s master development plan. “There were many hurdles,” said Roger. “Permitting, operating a terminal beyond functional capacity before it actually opened, staying ahead of demand, and having the assets and funding available to service customers.”
The biggest challenge of his career was leading hundreds of Port Houston employees through the COVID pandemic. Roger was responsible for ensuring the care of employees while they continued to operate the port during this time.
“There was no blueprint and much uncertainty in how to handle a pandemic in a port,” he recalled. “It was a challenging situation for all the [Houston] Ship Channel. Employees banded together, keeping cargo and supplies flowing to meet the demand.”
COVID, Roger noted, has changed business today by being able to work remotely and hybrid. Post COVID issues also occurred as Port Houston handled the massive influx of cargo, managed congestion, and managed other unexpected difficulties.
Roger has been instrumental in expediting Project 11 – the deepening and widening of the Houston Ship Channel. It is a billion-dollar, collaborative, infrastructure construction effort to support continued growth of the busiest waterway in the nation. The project is unique as it relies on a local funding plan that is the first of its kind, representing a cost sharing collaboration between public and private entities. Congress approved the widening and deepening of the channel in December of 2020 as part of the Water Resources Development Act of 2020. Because of this collaboration, the expansion project is targeted to be completed by the end of 2026. Without Roger’s dedicated leadership in working with industry stakeholders and driving the project forward on its unusual path, the traditional federal funding mechanism would have required decades to complete the expansion.
Looking ahead, Roger sees continued growth and opportunity for Port Houston and the Houston Ship Channel community. “Hydrocarbons will continue to play an important part as Houston is the biggest supplier for energy and with other supplements for other things,” Roger said. He also sees technology as one of the most rapidly growing aspects for efficiency in the port. He feels technology will not eliminate jobs, but rather it will allow workers to do their jobs more efficiently.
In 2022, Roger was one of six global shipping leaders inducted to the International Maritime Hall of Fame by the Maritime Association of the Port of New York and New Jersey. It was the first time anyone from Houston was ever inducted into their Hall of Fame, bringing recognition to Houston and Port Houston.
When asked for his advice to the next generation, Roger said this: “Take on responsibilities that aren’t necessarily in your lane that increase your knowledge in your organization. Raise your hand. You’ll be happy if you are responsible and accountable for something as well as building your skill set,” he said. “Treat people as you like to be treated. Listen! Everyone brings something to the table. At any meeting, you are probably not the smartest person in the room. Listen to others. By doing so, it may lead to new ideas that haven’t been considered.”
Post retirement Roger plans to continue to serve on the board of the Gulf Coast Protection District. Created in 2021 by the 87th Texas Legislature to oversee the implementation of an integrated and comprehensive coastal resilience strategy for the upper Texas coast, Roger was appointed to the board by Gov. Greg Abbott that same year. Its program to deliver vital protection from coastal storm surge to communities and industries and protect the Texas coast ecosystems are important to Roger. He looks forward to working with the board to achieve these significant protection goals.
What else does retirement hold? Roger loves to fish, is an advent duck hunter, and wants to play more golf. Having a home in College Station and being an Aggie graduate, he watches baseball, football, and other sports. Since retiring in August last year, he and his wife, Fabiana, have been traveling through the states and just recently returned from an extended vacation through Europe.
The Greater Houston Port Bureau wishes Roger fair winds and following seas! Read more about Roger as our 2025 honoree and his recognition at our 96th Annual Maritime Dinner on page 14.