PHILADELPHIA – U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) welcomes Susan Stranieri as the agency’s new Port Director for the Area Port of Philadelphia.
CBP’s Area Port of Philadelphia conducts enforcement and inspectional operations at international airports and seaports in Pennsylvania, Southern New Jersey and Delaware. These ports of entry include: international airports in Philadelphia, Harrisburg and Pittsburgh; military bases Joint Base Maguire-Dix-Lakehurst in N.J., and Dover Air Force Base in Delaware; and multiple seaport facilities along the Delaware River.
Michael J. Lovejoy, CBP’s Director of Field Operations, the agency’s regional headquarters in Baltimore, tabbed Stranieri for the post March 10. Her predecessor, Allan Martocci, retired in December.
“Susan’s experience and leadership in Customs and Border Protection’s border enforcement, and trade and travel facilitation environments is spectacularly well-rounded and is perfectly suited for this critically challenging assignment in one of our nation’s busiest international portals,” said Lovejoy.
“I have a strong appreciation that this is a location with great historical significance and pride, and I fully understand the substantial impact that our operations have on our local, our national and on our global economies,” Stranieri said. “I recognize there is a careful balance that we must maintain to ensure that protecting the nation remains our highest priority, while we continue collaborating with our partners to identify efficiencies in facilitating legitimate trade and travel.”
Stranieri, a native of Worcester, Mass., began her career with the legacy U.S. Customs Service in 1987.
She arrives in Philadelphia from her second tour at CBP’s National Targeting Center near Washington, D.C. There she served as chief watch commander and targeted international narcotics smuggling organizations, directed outbound enforcement operations, and managed classified security projects.
Her previous stateside assignments included leadership positions at both the Miami seaport and Miami International Airport; at Port Everglades/Fort Lauderdale, which is one of the nation’s busiest cruise ship ports; and she briefly served as CBP’s Area Port Director in Boston.
During her tour in Fort Lauderdale, she was one of only eight Customs employees nationwide invited to participate on then-Commissioner Raymond Kelly’s advisory board. She advised Kelly on issues affecting port level enforcement operations and recommended process improvements.
She served overseas in Belgium on CBP’s Container Security Initiative (CSI) and conducted mutual inspections with Belgium authorities of U.S.-bound containers. There are currently 58 foreign ports participating in CSI, accounting for 85 percent of container traffic bound for the United States. She also deployed to numerous foreign countries where she trained airline employees and conducted facility site surveys to assess internal conspiracy vulnerabilities.
As Area Port Director, Stranieri is responsible for developing and implementing measures that: protect United States citizens and foreign visitors against terrorists or weapons of mass effect; interdict illegal narcotics and illegal aliens arriving by air and sea; seize counterfeit consumer products and counterfeit monetary instruments; and protect our nation’s agriculture, ecology and economy against deliberate or accidental introduction of plant or animal diseases, and invasive plants and insects.
Stranieri holds an Associate’s Degree in Law Enforcement from Quinsigamond Community College in Worcester, MA and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Sociology/Criminal Justice from what is now Worcester State University. She has also completed the CBP Leadership Institute Program at the University of Chicago Booth Business School.
For more on CBP’s border security mission at our nation’s Ports of Entry, please visit http://www.cbp.gov/border-security/ports-entry.