“Come on in,” says the sign posted on the door of Ricardo Charlton’s office.

It’s a slightly risky invitation for someone who oversees maintenance in The Northwest Seaport Alliance’s South Harbor—a job that comes with 24/7 demands.

Charlton demonstrates his unflappable manner as he navigates a vehicle through a sea of moving straddle carriers and parked shipping containers, while the winter sun begins to dip into the Blair Waterway.

As he heads to his upstairs office, Charlton pauses to engage in friendly banter with an employee who’s on his way home.

The open-door policy is at work, even late on a Friday afternoon.

In Tacoma, he oversees a team of about 80 employees, and he says the high point of his job is building relationships with all of them.

His crew includes mechanics, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, track crew members and building and grounds workers.

Their duties range from trimming trees and clearing catch basins to maintaining 52 miles of rail lines that traverse port property. They keep HVAC systems humming in port warehouses, work on sprinkler systems and maintain fire hydrants.

They also ensure that a growing inventory of cranes and straddle carriers remains in top working order.

Charlton recently traveled to Shanghai, China, to inspect, test and commission new cranes headed to Tacoma: Four are scheduled to arrive in 2018, and another four in 2019.

Four new straddle carriers arrived recently in Tacoma, bringing the total to 36.

Maintaining the port’s heavy equipment is one of the paramount duties of Charlton’s team. A crane’s cables, for example, must be replaced after a set number of hours of use, and its working parts must be lubricated regularly to keep it running smoothly.

“There’s regularly scheduled maintenance on every piece of equipment we own,” Charlton said. “It’s constantly going on.”

The work of Charlton’s department is vital to NWSA shipping operations.

“Without preventive maintenance on the cranes and straddle carriers, we can’t move cargo,” Charlton said.

When he joined the team in January 2016, Charlton brought more than 20 years of terminal operations experience gained in locations from his native Bahamas to Lake Charles, Louisiana, and West Palm

Beach, Florida.

The work is demanding. And when something goes wrong, “that’s when people’s true character comes out,” Charlton said.

“Every tough situation builds our relationships and makes them that much stronger,” he said.

But when the crisis is over, it’s time to move on.

“We can still sit down, drink a cup of coffee and laugh,” he said. “I’m truly blessed with a great group of employees who know their job, and don’t need to be told what to do. They take a lot of pride in their work.”

Charlton’s boss Dustin Stoker, NWSA chief operations officer, calls Charlton a hardworking leader.

“Over the past two years, Ricardo has created a management team that is diverse and a department culture that utilizes the strengths of the team to drive improved performance,” Stoker said.

When difficulties surface, he added, “you can always count on Ricardo to have a good attitude and bring a smile and positive energy to the room.”

When the work week ends, the best place to find Charlton is in the kitchen of his Puyallup home.

Starting with Friday dinner, he said, “I have the kitchen until Sunday night. I make breakfast, lunch and dinner.”

He cooks a variety of cuisines, everything from jerk pork or chicken for dinner to buttermilk biscuits for breakfast. As the youngest of six kids, Charlton remembers spending time in the kitchen with his dad, who taught him how to cook.

“My father was a self-made engineer,” Charlton said. “He worked hard. And he loved cooking. He was off-the-charts awesome.”

He’s trying to be the same kind of dad to his girls, whether it’s attending their sports or musical events or cooking up delicious weekend meals. Sometimes they visit him for lunch on weekends, leaving their notes and artwork behind on the office whiteboard as evidence of their visit.

“Family is important to me,” Charlton said.

All about Ricardo Charlton

HOMETOWN:

Freeport, Grand Bahamas

FAMILY MAN:

He and his wife, Tammy, who’s originally from England, and their school-age daughters, Zahara and Zena, live in Puyallup. He also has two older children, Ricardo II and Mariah, from a previous marriage.

PROJECT RUNWAY:

For a high school variety show, he took a stab at modeling. “My buddy taught me some runway moves,” he said, recalling the cross-legged stop, turn, hand-on-chin poses. “I had to practice so much, I still remember them.”

MAKING TRACKS:

He ran track in high school. He was a sprinter, running 100-meter and 200-meter events. He attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., on a track scholarship, where he studied mechanical engineering.

HIDDEN TALENT:

He’s an eclectic chef at home, whipping up everything from barbecue to Chinese food. He even makes his own pizza dough.