Steamship Authority Picks Alex Kryska As New General Manager

Alex Kryska, a maritime and transportation executive from California, was chosen to be the new general manager of the Steamship Authority on Thursday following a 4-1 vote by the Steamship’s Board of Governors.

The vote is contingent upon successful contract negotiations with Kryska, which will commence over the next week.

Should he accept the position and successfully negotiate a new contract, Kryska will replace Bob Davis, who is retiring at the end of 2025 and has led the Steamship Authority for the last seven years.

Kryska would be leaving his job as the chief operating officer of PROP in San Francisco, CA, a private maritime transportation company that operates high-speed ferries in the San Francisco Bay area and Puget Sound. He was one of two finalists for the Steamship’s leadership post, along with Mark H. Amundsen, the SSA's current chief operating officer.

The SSA Board of Governors interviewed both candidates during a public session last week, then reconvened on Thursday to allow members time to meet with their constituents about the two finalists.

"It's clear from people in my community and talking to them, that this is a great opportunity for culture change," said SSA board member Peter Jeffrey, who represents Falmouth. "I think for me, Alex is the candidate to go to so we don't deplete our bench, and that this board demonstrates that we're moving forward with change."

Following the 4-1 vote on Thursday, SSA board member Robert Jones, who had voted against the motion to offer the position to Kryska and had supported Amundsen, stated he wanted to change his vote to ensure the board was unanimous.

During his interview with the Steamship Authority Board of Governors last week, Kryska was asked about his leadership style.

“Help me help you, is what it is,” Kryska said. “I have ideas about how things operate, but I would have to learn. I would have to go to people and rely on them to be honest with me and open with me, and teach me how I can help them, how I can best support them, and slowly guide them, maybe, or they can guide me. I would come in very much hat-in-hand. I have a deep bench of skills, but I don't know exactly how to apply them, and I would not assume that I would just start doing a broad brush anywhere. I know Bob (Davis) and Mark (Amundsen) have been here. They know they know the system. They know where all the hidden levers are, and I would want to learn from that. And that would be a big thing for me. It's like, let me learn from you. Let's work together.”

After graduating from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy in Kings Point, NY, Kryska started his career as a ship broker in California, and also served as a tanker manager for the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command in San Francisco.

Kryska had stints working for an aviation security company, serving as its director of operations and business services, as well as in consulting, and with a private education company that wrote standardized tests. His maritime career includes roles with the “Ride the Ducks” company, which operated amphibious vehicle tours, and, for the past eight years, with Prop, where he worked his way up to chief of operations.

That background, Kryska told the Steamship Authority governors last week, made him the best candidate for the job.

“I think my varied, eclectic, jack of all trades background really kind of led me to this,” Kryska said. “I'm the right person at the right time. I think I have a unique, very unique set of skills…I've been working for quite a number of years, in a lot of different industries. I've seen a lot of different things. I think that's put me in a place now where I have the patience, the confidence, the understanding to take on a new challenge, and this is, yeah, I absolutely think this will be a big challenge, but I don't see it as one I can't succeed at.”

Nantucket's representative on the Steamship Authority's Board of Governors, Rob Ranney, explained his support of Kryska for the general manager position was to bring in an outside perspective to the SSA, but also to retain Amundsen in his role as COO.

"It was a combo vote for me, in the sense that I liked Alex to be general manager, but I also wanted to keep Mr. Amundsen as the COO," Ranney told the Current on Thursday following the vote. "It's important for the mission continuity of the Steamship. If we put Amundsen as the GM, we'd have to go out and find a new COO again. It was best for the Authority as a whole if we went with some fresh eyes and fresh enthusiasm and kept Mr. Amundsen where he is. He's really good where he is, and we hope all the relationships work out moving forward. I don't want to rock the boat too much. There has to be some stability."

Kryska will take the helm of the SSA at a time of increased public scrutiny of its operations, especially on Martha's Vineyard - where residents have formed a citizen group to call for changes - and in the port communities of Falmouth and Woods Hole, where residents have called the Steamship truck traffic "untenable."

"A big part of it is going to be a listening tour, not just what people are saying internally but with the public as well," Ranney said of Kryska's first 100 days on the job, assuming he takes the position and works out a contract.

While several major initiatives have been completed ahead of Davis' departure as general manager and before Kryska's arrival - including union contract negotiations and the conversion of three new freight boats - Ranney said the SSA's new leader will still have a lot on his plate from day one.

"He's going to be facing a lot of other things coming at him," Ranney said. "The rebuild of the Nantucket terminal is not too far off. That's probably in the next five to 10 years. That's going to really crank up, because once the Woods Hole terminal is finished, which should be, hopefully, by this time next year, then the focus is going to be on Nantucket as the next terminal that gets redone. So he's going to have to be facing that. He's going to be looking at replacing the vessel Nantucket, which is 50-plus years old. So he's going to be looking at everything."