Steamship General Manager's New Contract Is Remarkably Generous

To the editor: Following the formal resignation of the current Steamship Authority General Manager, as of October 1, 2025, Mr. Robert Davis will be rehired as a senior advisor. His new contract contains remarkably generous terms. The advisor contract will be for an additional 1.5 years at full pay, that is, at no less than his current salary. Mr. Davis' compensation also includes a free "sports utility vehicle" or mid-sized vehicle, with all expenses, including gas and insurance, covered, and full health benefits for him and his wife.

More recently, during an SSA Executive Board Meeting, Mr. Davis directly requested that the Board extend the newly agreed-upon cost-of-living allowance (COLA) for non-union SSA workers to include the SSA administrative personnel. In response, the SSA Board recently voted to give Mr. Davis an additional 10.6% COLA pay bump, just three months before being rehired as a senior advisor.

How can the SSA even consider a cost-of-living increase for Mr. Davis when his new salary, which will be increased from his former one, more than compensates for cost-of-living expenses?

It should also be noted that while the contract states that it is for 1.5 years, this is misleading. This is because the contract allows Mr. Davis' employment to continue without limit if neither party presents a termination date.

This remarkably generous post-general manager contract is inconsistent with the protracted negotiations of the SSA with its employees, who were asking for reasonable, not overly generous, salary increases. Their new contract, of course, includes no perks like a free car and gasoline. How can the SSA justify such a disparate set of compensations?

Such behavior is typical of SSA operations. The SSA has made it extremely clear that it takes very good care of its senior staff. These include its former general managers and general counselors, many of whom, like Mr. Davis, have been rehired as advisors after their retirements, all on impressive terms.

The SSA's rehiring of many of its upper-echelon senior staff begs the question of how many on-site advisors the SSA needs. If, as the SSA claims, it has been operating successfully for many years, why does it need to hire yet another senior advisor? Is Mr. Davis so essential to SSA operations that he is really needed to maintain a fully operational organization moving forward? In light of the many failures of SSA operations under the leadership of Mr. Davis, if a new advisor is really needed, it appears it should be anyone but Mr. Davis.

How is it that the SSA seems to have unlimited money to compensate senior staff after their resignation and retirement, and also to pay for the absurd albatross of a new immense ticketing building in Woods Hole, while scrimping everywhere else? How can the SSA justify padding the nest eggs of its departing senior staff when, in reality, they never want to leave the nest?

A search for a new SSA general manager is presently underway. Hopefully, the SSA will hire the best candidate and not follow its practice of reverting to choosing one of its own.

Hiring a competent new GM for the SSA is essential. However, one must ask whether real constructive change can occur if Mr. Davis remains as an influential internal advisor? To allow the SSA to move forward, the new GM must change how it operates to constructively and directly benefit those who use its ferry services.

It is also critical that the SSA act constructively and positively towards those whose lives for many years have been so very adversely affected by the SSA's current General Manager's decision-making. The past leadership resulted in an ongoing SSA failure to consider its significant impacts on its port communities.

The daily traffic debacle in Woods Hole village this summer is only one manifestation of the current decision-making by the SSA senior staff.
Progress requires constructive change. The SSA must allow change to occur that benefits everyone, not solely its departing senior staff, who will continue to work as senior advisors.

Damien Kuffler
Woods Hole, MA