Commission President
Port of Long Beach, California
Susan E. Anderson Wise, an attorney and Long Beach resident since 1974, was elected to a one-year term as President of the Board of Harbor Commissioners on June 27, 2011, by her colleagues on the five-member governing board for the Port of Long Beach, California. She was appointed to a six-year term on the Commission in December 2008 by Mayor Bob Foster and confirmed unanimously by the Long Beach City Council.
The Commission President serves as chair of the Commission, running Board meetings and often representing the Port to the public and the shipping industry.
Ms. Wise has been in private practice of law in Long Beach since her admission to the bar in 1974. In addition, she now works as a mediator and arbitrator. She has extensive experience in a variety of matters, particularly civil and commercial litigation. Her practice has included the handling of employment disputes, including wrongful termination and sexual harassment claims; insurance coverage and bad faith litigation covering topics such as construction defects, ADA claims, workers’ compensation issues, personal injuries, and unfair competition; problems of corporate governance, litigation between neighbors and probate disputes. She serves as a mediator for the Superior Court and has served as a hearing officer for the Long Beach Civil Service Commission. She is on the Editorial Board for California Litigation, the official publication of the State Bar Litigation section.
She was a Member of the Ethics Review Task Force for the City of Long Beach from 2002-2003. She is a past President of the Long Beach Bar Association (1994) and the Women Lawyers of Long Beach (1988). She is a current Board Member of the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, past Board President of the Long Beach Legal Aid Foundation (1983-86), and a current Board Member and past President (1995-1997) of the Long Beach Bar Foundation, which sponsors “Shortstop,” a juvenile diversion program that Ms. Wise and other bar leaders formed shortly after the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Since 1992, she has been affiliated with Joseph Ball/Clarence Hunt American Inns of Court.
In the community, she has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Long Beach Children’s Clinic since 1996 and Board President 2002-2004, an Officer and Board Member for YMCA of Greater Long Beach since 1986, and she also serves with the Long Beach Nonprofit Partnership.
Ms. Wise is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the Dr. Katherine E. White Humanitarian Award (2005), the 27th State Senate District Outstanding Woman Award (2004), the Lawyer of the Year Award (1998) from the Long Beach Bar Association, the Lawyer of the Year Award (1993-1994) from the Women Lawyers of Long Beach, and the Legal Aid Foundation of Long Beach Sommelier d’Esprit Award (1996).
Ms. Wise was born in Chicago and grew up in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She attended Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, where she majored in history, with an emphasis on urban history. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated cum laude in 1970. She then served a year in VISTA, assigned to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, New York, where she developed youth programs and worked on projects designed to obtain construction jobs for untrained members of the Williamsburg community on various public construction projects scheduled for the area. She attended the University of Chicago Law School and graduated in 1974. Between 2003 and 2006, she completed basic and advanced Mediation Training at Pepperdine University.
During law school, she met and married fellow student Erich P. Wise. Upon graduation, they moved to Long Beach, where he had grown up. They have lived in Long Beach since 1974. Residents of the 3rd District, they have two grown daughters, both of whom attended Long Beach public schools, and are now married and have launched careers of their own. Caitlin is a physician in a nephrology fellowship at UC San Diego, and Johanna is an associate with a Boston law firm.
Marking 100 years of service to the community in 2011, the Port of Long Beach enters its second century as one of the world's premier seaports, a primary gateway for Trans-Pacific trade and a trail blazer in innovative goods movement, safety and environmental stewardship. The Port is served by 140 shipping lines with connections to 27 seaports around the world. With customer and community service at the core of operations, environmental agencies have acknowledged the Port for its landmark green initiatives, and industry leaders have named the Port of Long Beach the World's Greenest Port in 2011 and Best Seaport in North America 14 of the past 16 years. A major economic engine for the region, trade valued at more than $140 billion moves through the Port of Long Beach each year, supporting hundreds of thousands of Southern California jobs.
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