Capt. Paul LaMarre III of the Port of Monroe

As a third-generation mariner and proud tugboat captain, Paul LaMarre III is leading the Port of Monroe to become Michigan’s gateway to the world.

Since becoming the director of the Port of Monroe in 2012, Capt. Paul LaMarre III has built Michigan’s only port on Lake Erie from an overgrown “pile of dirt” to the “biggest little port” in Michigan. Along the way, he’s earned the support of the state across several administrations, from the 2015 investment by the Michigan Strategic Fund in a major dredging and construction project, to a bipartisan port infrastructure grant program in 2022 and a 2023 partnership with Newlab that led to a pilot survey project with an autonomous vessel operated by Mythos AI.

Today, thanks in significant part to Paul’s leadership, the Port of Monroe serves as the gateway to the State of Michigan’s multimodal transportation network. Located on the deep-draft frontage of the River Raisin, with direct Class 1 rail access and immediate proximity to major freeways, the Port of Monroe represents an unmatched convergence of major freight assets. Its director has built a life he loves: a life on and around the Great Lakes.

A Great Lakes Mariner and Naval Aviator

“I'm a lifelong Michigander. I originally grew up on Grosse Ile, lived in Birmingham and Bloomfield Hills, and went to Brother Rice High School. There was one theme that really resonated throughout; I'm a third-generation mariner within the Great Lakes maritime industry. My earliest memories are aboard Great Lakes ships.

My father is in the Great Lakes Maritime Hall of Fame. He’s operated a tugboat company in Detroit for 51 years now, while also being regarded as one of the masters of Great Lakes marine art. I went to the California Maritime Academy, majored in marine transportation and minored in logistics and naval science, and not only received my US Coast Guard license, but sailed on the Great Lakes as a cadet aboard Great Lakes freighters.

I also received my commission as a naval officer. After college, I was an aviator in the United States Navy, flying the F/A-18 Hornet out of Lemoore, California. Roughly three and a half years in, I was grounded for medical reasons, and within a year, had prostate cancer. I was 26 at the time of my diagnosis. Ultimately it changed my perspective on life a great deal in a lot of very good ways. Realizing your mortality at a young age makes you very thankful for every day after.

Once I left the Navy, I came back to the Great Lakes. I was sailing as a mate aboard our family’s tugboats at Gaelic Tugboat Company out of Detroit and became the executive director of a museum ship in Toledo, the Willis B. Boyer. The Boyer [later returned to its original name, the Col. James M. Schoonmaker – ed.] was in dire trouble, and I started a grassroots campaign to save it, which led to support from the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority. I was given the platform to manage maritime operations for the entire port, and in time to help create the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo. I continue to help oversee our historic vessels and a facility that I call the Smithsonian of the Great Lakes.

The Biggest Little Port

I ended up in Monroe County in 2012 when I became the Port of Monroe’s first new port director since 1978. When I began at the port, there were enough opportunities coming to the Monroe Port Commission that they knew they needed leadership.

My wife tells people that the port used to be a pile of dirt. It was completely overgrown with trees, like a wooded area, and did not have the dock facilities that we have today. We became a national example of how you put a port back on the map and create a groundswell of enthusiasm and support from your community.

We went from handling little to no traffic to being one of the most active ports in Michigan, and within the next year, we will be opening Michigan's first marine container terminal in the state's history.

As we started to handle cargo and put the port back on the map, I coined the phrase ‘the biggest little port.’ It was like when people talk about the biggest little town in the West – I would say that we're the biggest little port on the Great Lakes, and one day, when we grow up, we'll be a real port that evolved into Michigan's gateway port. We're the first stop in the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway system in the state of Michigan, and we are doing the most proactive things to develop international trade in the maritime industry in the state.

Return on Investment

The Port of Monroe would not be where it is today without the MEDC, and there are two people in particular whose roles really can't be overstated: former MEDC director Steve Arwood, and one of its current leaders, Stacy Bowerman. Steve Arwood initiated the first maritime investment into public port infrastructure in our state's history, which led to the creation of the Governor's Port Advisory Committee, which I chaired for Governor Snyder and still chair for Governor Whitmer. It became the pilot project for a larger port infrastructure grant program and enhanced the familiarity of our state legislators and agencies with the value of the Great Lakes maritime industry.

The MEDC funded the construction of our riverfront dock through the Michigan Strategic Fund in concert with brownfield redevelopment funds. It was roughly a $4 million project in 2018. To give you an example of how it paid dividends, the regional economic impact per foreign flag vessel with high value cargo is roughly $1 million. In 2020 at the height of the pandemic, the Port of Monroe had its busiest season in the port's history, going all the way back to 1932. We had 14 consecutive European vessels carrying wind components that were complementing wind towers being manufactured right here at the port by Ventower Industries, which also received support from the MEDC. Those ships alone represented $14 million in regional economic impact, in one season alone and kept hundreds of people working at the height of the pandemic.

Gaining the state's support and having the support of Governor Snyder and Governor Whitmer has been priceless. Just a couple of years ago, Governor Whitmer made the first visit of its kind to the Port of Monroe, in which she spent nearly half a day at the port, immersing herself in our port operation and learning about what we do. I always tell her, when I see her, that she's a badass. The first time I said that my lobbyist and her staffers looked at me like, ‘Oh my God.’ But you know what? She really is. She's been awesome, and she stands firm for what she believes in and what is best for Michigan. She has made, I think, every state agency, including the MEDC, stronger.

Quentin Messer, CEO of the MEDC, has been to the port as well to experience the development and the groundswell of support that we've created. I believe that we will be the first mile by which Michigan manufactured goods begin their voyage to global destinations, as well as the front door for imported goods to reach Michigan shores.

A Level of Credibility

I have been very fortunate to have a lot of different opportunities at a relatively young age. I'm 44 years old, and at this point, every aspect of my life touches the Great Lakes maritime industry in some way. 

I'm the port director for the Port of Monroe, but I am also the president of the American Great Lakes Ports Association, representing all of the US ports within the system, as well as the vice chairman of the National Museum of the Great Lakes, and still very involved in the museum's continued development. I am a very active tugboat captain for the Great Lakes Towing Company, towing vessels in Detroit, Toledo, Saginaw, and Sault Ste Marie.

All of these complement the port development. It gives us a level of credibility. Many ports have become pseudo-private economic and real estate development entities, whereas we focus strictly on maritime and cargo, with a very profound economic impact. We've been able to achieve our success because we are on the deck plates, and it's a lifelong calling. Everything I've tried to achieve, whether at the port, the museum, aboard the tugs or otherwise, is to preserve the Great Lakes’ past, present and future.

At the Port of Monroe, we fly Oliver Perry's famous flag, which says, ‘Don't give up the ship,’ in front of our building. Every day we fly it on the vessels at the port, and it's symbolic of our motto to be unrelenting and passionate about our work. If we're truly achieving our success, we are contributing to the Michigan economy in a way that provides meaningful work to Michiganders and hopefully improves quality of life. We’re working for our community’s and our own family’s survival, to take care of the people that we love.

The Tugboat America

The America is a living history. We've given her a second lease on life. She's 128 years old and still doing the same job that she was built for in 1897.

Since I was a kid, my dad always revered the America and her history. When we would go out in the boat in the Detroit River – I would have been roughly nine or 10 years old – we would go see her and my dad would revel in it: ‘That's the tugboat America right there,’ and share her history.

As the port grew and we needed tug service, I approached the Great Lakes Towing Company about bringing her to Monroe. She had been sitting in Milwaukee, not operating for about a three-year period. In 2023 we had a large event at the Port, Heritage Days. The one that poured the bottle of champagne over the bow of the tug was my father.

The tug has become my living restoration project. She embodies everything that I love about our industry, about its history, about its potential, about its resilience, and the greatest privilege of my career has been being her captain.

The Best-Kept Secret in Michigan

As someone whose life revolves around the Great Lakes, I would say that Monroe County is representative of our state's broader identity, what it says on the license plate – the Water Wonderland.

I live in Newport, Michigan, just north of the Port of Monroe, on Stony Point Peninsula out at the very end of the point, which is the furthest point of Michigan out into Lake Erie. When I return home every day to my wife Julie and our two golden retrievers, I am going home to a view of Lake Erie, where I'm fortunate to experience all the things that I love about Michigan in one spot: a Lake Erie sunrise, a bald eagle in a tree in our backyard, a Great Lakes freighter on the horizon, the smell of the lake air, and a community where you're surrounded by good people.

I think that Monroe County is unique in that we have so many of the treasured parts of Michigan's recreational or tourism assets. It's almost like the best-kept secret in Michigan.”