About ACTA - Board Profiles

Mr. James C. Hankla
Commissioner, Port of Long Beach

Mr. Hankla served as ACTA’s Chief Executive Officer from August 1998 to July 2003, overseeing all financial and administrative matters and ensuring that the $2.4 billion project opened on time and on budget. For his efforts, Governing magazine named him a 2002 Public Official of the Year.

Prior to joining ACTA, Mr. Hankla distinguished himself as City Manager of Long Beach for 11 years. In 1974, he was appointed Executive Assistant to the City Manager, and in 1976 was appointed the Director of Community Development and Executive Director of the Long Beach Redevelopment Agency. Mr. Hankla’s work in restructuring the City’s financing program for downtown redevelopment in the wake of California’s Proposition 13 earned the City the prestigious Winston Crouch Award from the American Society of Public Administration.

Mr. Hankla entered the private sector in 1980 as the Executive Director of the Virginia Peninsula Economic Development Corporation. In 1982, he returned to California as General Manager for Campeau Corporation’s Northern California Housing Division.

In 1982 he returned to public service as the first Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission. In 1985 he was appointed Chief Administrative Officer for the County of Los Angeles. In 1987, he returned to Long Beach as its City Manager, where he has established a long record of distinguished achievement.

Mr. Hankla has a Masters Degree in Public Administration from California State University, Los Angeles and a Bachelors Degree in Political Science

from California State University, Long Beach.
He has been recognized for excellence in the field of Economic Development by the National Council for Urban Economic Development (C U E D) and is a recipient of the Ed DeLuca Memorial Award from that organization for which he served as President from 1982-1984.

Mr. Hankla has served on numerous governing boards, advisory boards and civic organizations, including International City Theatre, Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, Los Angeles/Long Beach WTCA and of the Olson Urban Housing Company. He has been a guest lecturer at many universities, including Harvard, USC, CSULB, UCLA and UC Davis. He is past president of the Long Beach Area Council, Boy Scouts of America and in 1994 was named a Distinguished Eagle Scout by that organization.

His many professional honors include being named Long Beach Chamber of Commerce Entrepreneur of the Year for 2001, Government Executive of the Year by Executive Magazine in 1987, and the Clarence Dykstra Award for Excellence in Public Administration from the American Society for Public Administration in 1988. In 1990, he received the International City Management Association’s Award for Program Excellence for Large Cities for innovation in personnel and human resources management. In 1998, he was honored by the American Society for Public Administration with the prestigious Earl Warren Award for his Contribution to Good Government and by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with the Commanders Medal of Public Service. He has been named as a distinguished alumni from both CSULB and CSULA.