Her appointment ties in with a drive by Halcrow to expand its activities in North America, particularly in the areas of transportation, water and the environment.Based at Long Beach, Ms Jones will primarily be responsible for all Halcrow’s maritime operations across the West Coast and the rest of the Pacific Rim, and will also play a leading role in developing the company’s other interests.

“My responsibilities will be quite broad, especially as they relate to transportation – because it is so linked to the maritime industry.Whether ports are successful depends not only on the facilities they provide for shipping lines and cargo handling, but also on being able to transport the goods to inland locations – and that is very key to the west coast US,”she said to Port Strategy. “It is very much a competitive issue in ports,not only in US West Coast but also because of the potential for diversion into Mexico and other areas.”

The US is expected to move further down the path of public-private partnerships in port developments, an area in which Halcrow is “well versed”, she said.

Halcrow has worked with some of the major ports – Los Angeles, Long Beach and others – primarily on container terminal developments to meet the needs of the ever-increasing cargo volumes coming across the Pacific “and that will continue to be a very strong focus”, she said. “But there are also a lot of smaller ports along the West Coast that we want to target.We offer a wide range of services not only in the container market but also in areas such as cruise terminals, waterfront developments and environmental restoration, and that is also very much a target on the West Coast.”

At the same time, said Ms Jones, Halcrow will be working with clients on projects to maintain, repair and improve existing assets in order to get more out of them.“The environmental factor is a large challenge to overcome for West Coast ports, so that they can continue to develop facilities that are going to be necessary to maintain the market in North America and not see potential diversion into South America.