From the outside, it was an unconventional change when Mogens Pedersen announced at the end of 2023 that on 1 March 2024 he was moving to the position of port director in Hvide Sande Havn from the position of municipal director in Varde Municipality, which he held for 10 years.
58-year-old Mogens Pedersen is also fully involved in talking about how the change has gone, and what differences stand out when DOI.dk meets him at the port office in Hvide Sande.
- It is a big difference to go from a municipality with many employees to a port where there are 17 employees. It is exciting to work in an organization that does not depend on tax revenue. The port must generate its own income, says Mogens Pedersen and elaborates:
- The driving force is great in a municipality because of its size - but conversely, the readiness for change is greater in a small company like the port here.
The biggest surprise
There are skills that can be translated and used in the two otherwise immediately very different positions.
- The biggest surprise is going from a municipality, where there are political positions that you have to balance between, to the port, where it is the various professions that I have to balance between, explains Mogens Pedersen about the port's users and stakeholders.
- Here in the port, it is the interests from fishing, tourism, sea wind in addition to industry and craftsmanship, he adds.
There is another significant difference, which the port director also highlights.
- It is much more hectic in a municipality than it is here. This is both because you have to juggle many more balls - but also because there are greater political expectations in a municipality, he says.
Mogens Pedersen also came with an advantage in relation to Hvide Sande Havn, and it was decisive.
- I had the advantage that I knew the harbor beforehand. And I couldn't think of applying for the position of port director in another port elsewhere, it says.
Before his time as municipal director, he was, among other things, technical director in Ringkøbing-Skjern Municipality, so from there he knew the harbor intimately.
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