Peter West brings a wealth of business experience and home-grown local knowledge after taking over the helm of the Port’s five-member board.

He has moved from being chairman of one of Australia’s biggest ports at Dampier to one of the state’s smallest in Albany,.

But he expects the challenges to remain the same for the future.

“I like ports anyway, and this was an opportunity,” he said.

“It was more the fact that I still have some family and friends down there (in Albany).”

Born and bred in Albany, Mr West studied science at the University of WA and retired from full-time work with BP in 2000 after 34 years, finishing as a director.

He has since been on several boards and committees.

These have included chairman of both Verve Energy and the Scitech board.

He said he brings the skill and knowledge of business processes which he hopes to pass on.

“The thing I really do enjoy is mentoring executives and CEOs and just being there with that bit of wisdom just coming out of experience,” he said.

“The second thing for me is the Albany connection.”

Mr West said that while facilitating trade, it was important for the port to integrate with the community.

“The trade is less important than the impact on the town in some ways,” he said.

“There has been a lot of work in the last number of years improving the integration and linkage.

“I hope to just continue that and go a bit further.”

Mr West said that despite some fears by locals to the contrary, the waterfront project was not expected to have any impact on the future of the port’s operations.

He said the port did not operate 24/7 and, even if it grew further - especially when the Grange Resources magnetite mine proceeded - no impact was expected.

He said the waterfront project’s impact on the port had been highlighted as an issue of concern since he took over.

Mr West replaces previous chairman Alan Birchmore.