Steve Potash

Principal, Potash & Company

Stephen J. Potash is a Principal and former Chairman of Potash & Company, a public relations and association-management firm that exclusively serves clients engaged in global commerce, transportation and logistics. Partially retired, he continues to provide part-time consulting services.

Steve is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the California-Asia Business Council (Cal-Asia), a non-profit business association promoting expanded commercial ties between California and the markets of China and the rest of Asia.  Cal-Asia members include some of California's largest multinational corporations.  Potash & Company provides management services to the group, and domiciled it for 24 years.

Steve served as public relations consultant to APL, the global container transport and logistics provider, continuously for 25 years (1979-2004), except for the period 1987-90. During those three years, he served in-house as Vice President, Corporate Communications, for the then-$2 billion, publicly-traded (NYSE) company.

Other principal, long-term clients of Potash & Company in recent years have included Pacer International and its intermodal unit, Pacer Stacktrain, the North America freight transportation and logistics providers; the California-Asia Business Council (Cal-Asia, see above); and the Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of Northern California (CBFANC), a professional non-profit association.

Earlier in his career, Steve also served as a public relations consultant to the Japanese Consulate General at San Francisco, JETRO San Francisco, Japan Air Lines, British Week, Bank of Tokyo of California (now Union Bank), California Council for International Trade (CCIT), serving as executive director for 17 years.  

Steve is co-author, with Dr. Robert J. Chandler of the Wells Fargo Bank history department, of a book on the history of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. Entitled "Gold, Silk, Pioneers & Mail," the monograph was published in 2007 by the Friends of the San Francisco Maritime Library. It discusses the line's service from the Gold Rush to the start of the world's first regularly scheduled trans-Pacific steamship service, and the years beyond. Pacific Mail played a key role in the development of San Francisco and the Western region, fostered Asian immigration to the US, and enabled the advent of today's Pacific Basin commerce..

Steve is a graduate of Pomona College in Claremont, California, majoring in International Relations. His interests include Chinese Export Silver (objects made in China in the 18th and 19th centuries for use in China by resident Western trading company officials, diplomats, and also commissioned by sea captains). Other interests include 19th Century paintings and original lithographs depicting the ships of the Pacific Mail Steam Ship Company and the Chinese immigration to America.