Kimberly Brandon, President
Commissioner Kimberly Brandon was appointed to the Port Commission by Mayor Willie L. Brown, Jr. in August 1997. She has served several years as the Commission's president (2000-2001, 2008, 2011, 2018-2021, 2023, and 2024) and vice president (1998-1999, 2002-2003, 2006-2007, 2010, 2012-2013, 2016-2017, and 2022).
Brandon is the first African-American woman to serve on the Commission, where she spearheaded the formation of the Southern Advisory Committee (SAC) to ensure that southeastern waterfront communities were engaged in development planning affecting their neighborhoods.
Brandon is an accomplished financial services professional deeply committed to public service. She most recently served as Senior Vice President with The Brandon Group at Morgan Stanley, where she oversaw a portfolio of assets of high-net-worth individuals, foundations, endowments and public entities. Brandon joined the firm in 2004 from the Private Bank at Bank of America in San Francisco as a Private Client Manager. While at Bank of America, Brandon provided strategic investment management advice to ultra-high-net-worth individuals, foundations and endowments. Prior to joining the Private Bank at Bank of America, Brandon spent 13 years with Wells Fargo Bank working with high net-worth individuals.
Brandon also spends numerous hours serving the community on various nonprofit boards and is past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Museum of African Diaspora, an active board member of PACT, Inc., and San Francisco Grants for the Arts Advisory Panel. She also serves as the Chairwoman of Metta Fund, a private foundation supporting high-quality and innovative organizations to improve the health for all in San Francisco.
Brandon is a native San Franciscan and a graduate of San Francisco State University. She is a Distinguished Alumni who serves on the San Francisco State University Foundation’s Board of Trustees as Chairwoman. She is also a member of the University’s Lam Family College of Business Development Council. She completed Cannon Financial Institute’s Certified Wealth Strategist Mastery Program and holds the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Series 7, 63 and 66 licenses.
Commissioner Brandon’s term expires in May 2025.
Gail Gilman, Vice President
Commissioner Gail Gilman was appointed to the San Francisco Port Commission by Mayor Mark Farrell in April 2018. Gilman is now the Vice President of the Commission and an influential executive with more than 25 years of experience designing and driving policy, strategy, and real estate development to reduce homelessness in California and across the nation. Since June 2023, she has been CEO and President of CCH (Christian Church Homes), an affordable housing developer with more than 3,600 residents in six states. Prior to her role at CCH, she spent more than 20 years in senior executive positions for organizations that created financing for and built affordable housing. She has also previously served on numerous housing and homeless task forces and was appointed in 2017 by California State Governor Jerry Brown to California’s Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council. Gilman previously served on the commission for the San Francisco Department of Building Inspection.
Gilman is a thought partner for local and state elected officials on housing issues and recently advised the California Governor’s Office on the formation of Homekey, the state’s $1.3 billion program that was the largest and fastest expansion of housing for people experiencing homelessness in recent history. She has co-chaired numerous ballot measures to create more affordable housing in San Francisco.
Gilman is a regular speaker at national and international conferences on topics ranging from supportive housing and social enterprise to executive leadership. In 2015, she was honored by San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee for her contributions to the City of San Francisco. Gilman received her Master’s degree in Nonprofit Administration from the University of San Francisco and her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from San Francisco State University. She lives in the North Beach neighborhood along the waterfront.
Commissioner Gilman’s term expires in May 2026.
Willie Adams, Commissioner
Commissioner Willie Adams was appointed to the Port Commission by Mayor Edwin M. Lee in July 2012. Adams previously served as the Commission's vice president (2014, 2015, 2018-2021, and 2023) and president (2016, 2017, and 2022). Adams previously served on the San Francisco Film Commission.
Adams was named the President of the International Longshore & Warehouse Union (ILWU) in 2018. Adams's long history with ILWU started in Tacoma, Washington in 1978, where he worked on the docks as a longshoreman for 24 years. In 1998, he was elected by co-workers to serve on their local union Executive Board and chosen in 2000 to serve on the union’s International Executive Board. Adams was also elected to serve as one of three Trustees who oversee the ILWU’s finances. Adams has represented the ILWU during visits with workers in South Africa, Australia, Spain, Cuba, Vietnam and China.
Adams also serves on the Board of TransAfrica, where he works closely with Board Chairman Danny Glover and Board member Harry Belafonte. He is a passionate cultural advocate. He produced “Celebrations of Black History and Labor” programs in Tacoma, which featured cultural and political figures including Danny Glover, Paul Robeson, Jr., Yolanda King (Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter), hip-hop icon Chuck D, and Betty Shabazz (daughter of Malcolm X). He is also executive producer of several documentary films, including one exploring the life of African American writer Langston Hughes, “Hughes’ Dream Harlem,” and “The Black Composers,” which tells the story of African American film score composers. Adams is currently involved with a full-length dramatic film exploring the life of labor leader Harry Bridges. Adams has resided in San Francisco since 2003.
Commissioner Adams's term expires in May 2026.
Stephen Engblom, Commissioner
Commissioner Stephen Engblom was appointed to the Port Commission by Mayor London Breed in July 2024.
He is a registered architect and urban planner, with extensive urban design experience as an executive and faculty member at UC Berkeley. For over two decades, he has collaborated on urban design and architectural projects in the San Francisco Bay Area, nationally, and globally. He is dedicated to community engagement and has mentored numerous urban development professionals.
With deep technical expertise in the urban design and planning realms, a global network, and years of leadership experience, Engblom has delivered equitable, environmentally sustainable, and economically viable strategies and master plans for both public and private sector clients. As Senior Managing Director at CBRE, he pioneered the consultancy’s first public sector practice. At AECOM, as Executive Vice President, he led the development of AECOM Cities, a comprehensive approach integrating planning, design, and implementation of urban infrastructure projects worldwide. Currently, he runs his own consultancy focused on Housing, and he teaches Resilience and Equity in Real Estate Development and Design at UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design.
Commissioner Engblom's term expires May 2028.
Steven Lee, Commissioner
Commissioner Steven Lee was appointed to the Port Commission by Mayor London Breed in July 2022. He brings his decades of entrepreneur and branding experiences to the San Francisco Port Commission.
Previously, Lee served two and a half terms on the Entertainment Commission from 2012 to 2022. He joined the Board of The California Music & Culture Association in 2007, a non-profit organization that handles proposed alterations of government regulations, alcohol related matters, public safety, communication, and education to members & non-members in California. Overall, Lee has spent the past 20 years serving as an advocate for San Francisco's $3.3 billion nightlife industry.
A respected and well-known leader in the API Community and Chinatown, Lee has been a champion for uplifting Asian American voices in San Francisco and the broader Bay Area. He was instrumental in restructuring, raising capital for and the reactivation of the iconic 100-year-old Sam Wo Restaurant in 2015. His legacy recognition is for building a life-size statue in the remembrance of immigrant Chinese workers who contributed to the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, never officially acknowledged by the U.S. government until May of 2019. The Chinese Railroad Workers Memorial Monument is currently on display at the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento.
Commissioner Lee’s term expires in May 2026.