“It’s time; I’ve been here for 34 years and it is time,” Dorto said. “You always hear, ‘leave on a high note’ and we just completed the second best year in our history, so I think this is the right time.”
Dorto joined the Virginia Port Authority in 1979 as the director of trade development shortly after all of the municipally-owned general cargo terminals in the Hampton Roads Harbor were unified under the VPA flag.
Nine years later Dorto moved over to the VPA’s private terminal operating company, VIT, where he eventually became its chief executive officer. Dorto, throughout his career in Virginia, has had the responsibility of negotiating contracts with global steamship lines that call at The Port of Virginia. It was Dorto who was instrumental in getting 95 percent of the steamship lines calling the port signed to long-term, 10-year contracts.
“Joe has contributed greatly to the long term success the port has enjoyed and he has played a key role in crafting contracts and agreements that have helped make the port the major economic driver it has become,” said William H. Fralin, chairman of the VPA’s Board of Commissioners.