The reshoring of manufactured goods from Asia to North America is bound to take some import business away from U.S. ports. But there are other developing threats to the continued dominance of gateways like Los Angeles-Long Beach - specifically, a couple of upstarts to the north and south.

When many doubted needed HIV/AIDS commodities could be delivered timely and qualitatively to hard-to-reach areas of Africa, an innovative approach to healthcare logistics proved them wrong.

What does it take to convince a manufacturer to locate a plant in the U.S.? How about in California, one of the most highly regulated and difficult states in which to operate? (It ranked 40th in CNBC's latest survey "America's Top States for Business." What about the San Francisco Bay Area, with its prohibitive cost of living, high population density and even more onerous regulatory environment?