WILMINGTON – Former state legislator Danny McComas took his oath yesterday as the new chairman of the N.C. State Ports Authority (SPA) Board of Directors.
McComas, a trucking company executive who earlier this month resigned from the N.C. General Assembly to accept the governor-appointed post, will serve the board until 2016.
The 59-year-old New Hanover County Republican had served nine terms, or 18 years, as representative of the state’s 19th District in the N.C. House. He announced long ago he would not seek reelection. In November, New Hanover County Board of Commissioners Chairman Ted Davis, a Republican, will face off with Kure Beach Town Commissioner Emilie Swearingen, a Democrat, for the House seat McComas has vacated.
Gov. Bev Perdue, a Democrat, announced McComas’s appointment to the SPA board August 29. He replaces Gastonia’s Carl Stewart, a former N.C. House speaker, who stepped down from the board in August.
McComas is president of MCO Transport Inc., a trucking company headquartered in Wilmington that moves containers from the ports of Brunswick and Savannah, Ga., Charleston, S.C., and Wilmington.
“Daniel McComas knows the ports, he knows transportation and he knows how government works,” said Phil Marion, senior vice-president of BB&T, the bank whose local board of directors McComas has also served.
Until his resignation from the legislature, McComas had chaired the House Committee on Commerce and Job Development.
McComas upon his appointment said the SPA board chairmanship would allow him to continue his drive to make North Carolina an economic force.
