South Carolina Ports Authority president and CEO Barbara Melvin has resigned after three years helming the complex.
Melvin resigned last week in an apparent unexpected move as the container port system is undergoing major expansion initiatives as part of a goal to reach 10 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of container capacity by 2050.
The port authority’s board of directors named chief financial officer Phillip Padgett as interim CEO, effective immediately. Padgett will oversee the Port of Charleston and two inland hubs, Port Greer and Port Dillon.
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“I am grateful for the opportunity to have served South Carolina and the Ports Authority over these many years,” said Melvin, who had worked at the ports since 1998. “However, for personal and professional reasons, I want to pursue other opportunities. I take pride in what has been accomplished by the Port while I have served it in multiple roles. Knowing the resiliency of the Ports Authority and its people, I have no doubt even more success is in its future.”
According to Charleston, S.C.-based publication The Post and Courier, Melvin will remain an hourly consultant for the SC Ports Authority through Dec. 31.
A report from the South Carolina Daily Gazette said Melvin’s resignation came two days after the board held its regular scheduled meeting at the authority’s headquarters in Mount Pleasant, S.C. When that meeting concluded, board chair Bill Stern immediately called an unscheduled and previously unannounced closed-door meeting that was held for roughly one hour.
Stern said in a public statement that Melvin took the ports in a “positive direction” during her tenure, citing that she oversaw the reopening of the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal after a court battle with union dockworkers shut it down for two years.
The Leatherman Terminal, the first new container terminal built and opened in the U.S. since 2009, is now in “phase two” of its expansion with the construction of a second, 1,600-foot berth that accommodates an additional five ship-to-shore cranes. When fully built out, Leatherman Terminal will have three berths and a capacity of 2.4 million TEUs.
The SC Ports Authority recently announced that its largest carrier customer, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), will launch two new weekly services to call at the Leatherman Terminal in September.
Both trans-Atlantic services—the Albatros and Dragon—will deploy 15,000 TEU vessels, among the largest weekly services to call the Port of Charleston. The port is the deepest on the East Coast at 52 feet.
The terminal is one of the port’s multiple expansion projects, including another at North Charleston Terminal that would expand its capacity to 5 million containers, including 400 acres of new terminal space.
Construction is also taking place at the Leatherman Rail Facility project which is forecast to handle 1 million rail lifts per year upon completion. The facility is scheduled to open in early 2026, with all six electric rail-mounted gantry cranes (RMGs) already set up. These cranes will move cargo containers between trucks and trains.
Costs of that project have swelled up from an initial $349 million three years ago to $544.7 million now, largely because of inflation, tariffs on steel and unforeseen complications in building a southern access to the facility.
Additionally, a drayage road linking the rail yard to the adjacent Leatherman Terminal won’t open until November 2026.
Other projects are taking longer than expected, with the port authority yet to hire a contractor for the rail yard’s “Southern Connector” extension. This network of new tracks would allow Norfolk Southern rail cars to enter and exit from the south end of the site.
The Ports Authority won’t be asking the state to cover additional cost overruns, according to Melvin.
It is unclear if any of the projects or associated costs are related to Melvin’s exit.
The Ports Authority will pay Melvin $822,780 and contribute $100,000 to credit her government retirement account, according to a separation agreement obtained Monday by The Post and Courier.
In the 2025 fiscal year, the SC Ports handled 2.6 million TEUs, a 3 percent increase over the previous year, while rail volumes grew by 4 percent.
During July, the first month of the 2026 fiscal year, SC Ports handled 213,177 total TEUs, and 117,059 cargo containers during the first month of fiscal year 2026, nearly 6 percent drop from last July.
