Semo Port director Dan Overbey set to retire after 25 years at helm

Dan Overbey has watched the barges, trucks and train cars come and go at the Southeast Missouri Regional Port for 25 years.

As executive director, Overbey has overseen growing operations at the Mississippi River port near Scott City. But he said he�s finally ready to retire, which is set to occur June 30.

Overbey has been looking toward retirement for the past few years.

In 2016, the port authority board of directors hired Cary Harbison as assistant director. A former project manager at Bowen Engineering and Surveying in Cape Girardeau, Harbison takes over as director July 1.

Overbey said he is ready to let Harbison �take the wheel here.�

The longest serving director of the port, Overbey said he has enjoyed the job.

It�s a job that involves everything from transportation planning and engineering to financing and marketing. Overbey compared the job to putting together a �jigsaw puzzle.�

He added, �That is the fun thing. There are so many different parts. You constantly find out how much you don�t know.�

But regardless of whether he admits it, Overbey knows a lot about running the port.

Still, Overbey said he never started out intending to direct port operations.

Trains to trucks

The Cape Girardeau resident grew up in Sikeston, Missouri. His father operated a Shell service station.

�I grew up around cars and trucks and that kind of stuff,� he recalled.

He graduated from Southeast Missouri State University, where he studied business.

His wife, Gail, who is from Benton, Missouri, and whose father had a service station, teaches psychology at Southeast Missouri State University. She plans to retire at the end of this year, Overbey said.

Overbey said he and his wife moved around before settling down in Cape Girardeau.

He worked in office positions for the Missouri Pacific Railroad in Texas and in St. Louis. He later served in the market research department for the Frisco Railroad in St. Louis for three years before returning to a position at Missouri Pacific.

Overbey had other jobs as well over the years, including working at a small Illinois port and handling various management duties for trucking companies.

He taught marketing at Southeast for a year in the 1980s. He also worked for Drury Development.

�I was kind of the sales rep,� Overbey recalled, adding he assisted with several developments on Siemers Drive, including Walmart and Sam�s Club stores. �That was pretty neat,� he said.

In April 1993, he was hired as director of the Southeast Missouri Regional Port.

Struggling port

The port was struggling financially when he took over. Overbey said had he known about the financial difficulties, he might not have accepted the job.

The port authority was formed in 1975 by the county governments of Scott and Cape Girardeau, but was still having growing pains into the 1990s. The port was funded for four years with a sales tax implemented by the two counties. But the tax ended in 1990, having generated $7.3 million, Overbey said. Most of that � some $5 million � was spent developing the harbor.

Overbey said �the money was pretty well gone� when he became director.

In the early 1990s, the port consisted of a harbor, a dock and a few tenants, he said. Today�s Route AB, which provides a paved, direct connection between the port and Interstate 55, was not there when Overbey became director. Trucks coming to and from the port traveled through Scott City, he said.

The port gradually attracted more tenants, bringing needed revenue to the port, Overbey said.

�We bought our railroad in 1994,� he said. The port authority purchased six miles of track from Missouri Pacific Railroad, which no longer needed the line, Overbey said.

The rail line was later extended. Today, the port operates about 12 miles of track, he said.

Business on the rail line was slow at first, Overbey said. The port initially handled one rail car of plastics a month.

Today, the port handles about 6,000 railcars a year, he said.

Development of the port depended partly on securing federal grants to help fund improvements, he said.

On solid footing

Four years after taking the job, Overbey said the port�s finances had been placed on solid footing.

�In 1997, we reached break even,� he recalled, explaining the tenant leases and revenue from the port railroad covered the port�s expenses. �We could pay our bills,� he said.

The port now is home to about a dozen lease operations, Overbey said.

Privately owned companies operating at the port have assets totaling about $60 million and combined employ about 150 people, he said.

The port itself has about $29 million in assets, which includes land, harbor, railroad tracks and utilities, he said.

�It is a nice place to come to work,� he said, gazing at port operations out the windows of the board room in the hilltop, port office.

He said he has enjoyed working with the port staff as well as the relationships with the tenant businesses.

�It is kind of like family,� he said.

But Overbey said he is ready for a change. He said he looks forward to traveling in his retirement, including visiting his two sons, one who lives in Denver and the other who lives in Boston.

Overbey has been using up some of his vacation time as he prepares to leave. Overbey said he piled up vacation time over the years because he was too busy running the port to take time off.

�There was a lot I needed to do,� he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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