After almost 48 years, Jürgen Behrens, Head of the Port of Hamburg Representative Office South, is retiring from logistics. For almost 20 years, he was the Port of Hamburg's liaison to port customers in Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg and Switzerland. He will be succeeded by Karin Lengenfelder, who has returned to her native Bavaria for the new role after 15 years in Hamburg.

Jürgen Behrens decided on a career in the port industry at a young age when he trained as a "shipping agent and shipbroker" at Hapag-Lloyd. His career took him to London, Le Havre and Haiti, among other places. "Logistics involves dealing with very different people, cultures and languages. That's what makes this industry so appealing to me," says Jürgen Behrens. In the mid-1980s, the establishment of the "round-the-world service" of United States Lines Bremen and Munich brought him to Bavaria, where he is now rooted with his family. Before taking over as head of the Port of Hamburg Marketing (HHM) representative office in Munich in 2001, he worked as branch manager first for CAST Europe Germany and then for Senator Lines.

"We thank Jürgen Behrens for his tireless efforts to anchor the Port of Hamburg in the south with shippers and port customers. With projects such as "62 plus", he also managed to increase the rail share of hinterland traffic with Bavaria by ten percent," praises Axel Mattern, HHM Board Member.

Karin Lengenfelder will continue Jürgen Behrens' successful work in the future. In her first career, she worked as a journalist in her home region of Augsburg for around 20 years before her path took her to Hamburg. She joined the Hamburg Port Authority as a press officer in 2008. "I was immediately fascinated by the port," says Karin Lengenfelder. As Head of Communications at Buss Port Logistics, she gained further experience in areas such as offshore wind, seaworthy packaging and inland ports. After a foray into international communications for parcel logistics, she joined Port of Hamburg Marketing's head office as a communications expert in 2018. "We are delighted to have found a competent successor to Jürgen Behrens in Karin Lengenfelder, who is anchored both in port logistics and in southern Germany," says HHM CEO Ingo Egloff.