Joseph Byrne

Department of Transportation Executive Agent for MDA

Joseph A. Byrne

Mr. Joseph A. Byrne, a member of the U.S. Senior Executive Service, became the Associate Administrator for Environment and Compliance on May 27, 2007. In this position, he implements the newly formulated and critical Maritime Administration role in addressing the growing regulatory and compliance challenges facing the Nation’s maritime community. He is responsible the newly-formed office of the Associate Administrator for Environment and Compliance and its constituent elements dedicated to issues of safety, security, environment, compliance, related international rules, regulations and standards and programmatic maritime research and development.

From 2000 to 2007, Mr. Byrne was Director, Office of Shipbuilding and Marine Technology, Maritime Administration (later renamed the Office of Marine Asset Construction and Technology). In this role, he supervised, directed and coordinated the Agency's continuing support to the maritime industry in regaining and retaining its competitiveness worldwide.

From 1994 to 2000, Mr. Byrne was the Director, of the Office of Shipyard Revitalization, and National Maritime Resource & Education Center (NMREC). In this position, Mr. Byrne served as the principal advisor to the Maritime Administrator in the formulation, implementation, analysis and evaluation of the 1993 National Shipbuilding Initiative (NSI) – an executive/legislative branch program to support long-range goals and programs designed to assist the U.S. shipbuilding industry in reestablishing its competitive position in the international commercial marketplace.

From 1987-1993, Mr. Byrne was a member of the U.S. State Department Foreign Service Delegation to the Commission for the Study of Alternatives to the Panama Canal (CAS). CAS was an international mission established by the Panama Canal Treaty of 1969, staffed by the governments of Panama, Japan and the United States, and based in the Republic of Panama. Its mission was, in effect, to devise a master plan for the Panama Canal for a facilities expansion in the 21st Century.

From September 1985 to December 1986, Mr. Byrne was Chief, Division of Ship Financing Contracts, Office of the Chief Counsel, Maritime Administration. He had the responsibility for representing the U.S. Government's interests in the negotiation and closing of major Title XI loan guarantee transactions involving the construction U.S. flag vessels built or to be built in U.S. shipyards.

During the 1970s and early 1980s, Mr. Byrne worked in the Port of New York and New Jersey as an officer and director of an intermodal multi-purpose marine container terminal and as General Counsel to the New York Terminal Conference - a consortium of some thirty steamship operators, stevedores and terminal operators that developed and administered free time and demurrage rules for cargo entering and leaving New York Harbor.

Mr. Byrne served as a Commissioned Officer in the United States Marine Corps, with his last active duty as a member of the Staff of the Commanding General, First Marine Air Wing.

This page was last updated on July 7, 2010.