Summer is fast approaching the Vineyard. The lead-up to the tourism season is well underway as summer residents return to open their homes and visitors are steadily increasing. The Island, which will see its population surge from 20,000 year-round to more than 100,000 during July and August, is bracing for the onslaught of summer.
At the helm of this always-fraught journey into summer is Alex Kryska, the new head of the Streamship Authority, who has been steering for a little more than 100 days. He is plunging into his first summer season as the head of the ferry service, the Island’s lifeline, which has been plagued with technology glitches as well as staff shortages and ferry repairs that leave passengers intensely frustrated. It is now in Kryska’s wheelhouse to solve these problems and steer the ship into a successful summer for a tourism economy that collectively relies on the hum of summer for the vast majority of its annual revenue.
In a wide-ranging interview with The Martha’s Vineyard Times, Kryska said he is presiding over bustling preparations for what looks to be another busy season. In Woods Hole, construction for a new terminal is underway, targeting a mid-June opening, and the SSA announced at its board meeting earlier this month that it broke its record for preseason sales of its electronic ticket books for the high-speed ferry between Hyannis and Nantucket; 5,218 tickets generated $1.427 million in sales, with one customer buying 155 ticket books.
At his office on the second floor of the Steamship Authority’s office in Falmouth, Kryska told The Times on April 23 about his plans for the upcoming summer: “I go on vacation Memorial Day, and I come back on Labor Day, so you guys are on your own,” he said jokingly.
In reality, there’s a scramble to prepare for the impending onslaught of travelers. Particularly, the new terminal in Woods Hole, the facility people sailing to and from the Vineyard will use to buy tickets in person, needs to be ready by June 15, right at the start of the busy season. Signage needs to be installed, traffic markings repainted, and personnel need to undergo training to satisfy customers’ needs and ensure safe and efficient traffic at the terminals. And on the Vineyard, ferry staff are “greasing the wheels” to ready the Oak Bluffs terminal for a May 14 opening.
“There’s a lot,” Kryska said.
Kryska was hired to be the next SSA head in November by the ferry line’s board, launching into his official duties in January after finalizing contract negotiations. He currently lives in Falmouth. Even beyond getting ready for the summer, Kryska entered the job with a full plate: He inherited an ongoing redevelopment of the reservation system, as well as the fallout after the state inspector general released a scathing report in December that said the SSA’s failed website project wasted between $2 million and $4 million in public funds.
To become better acclimated to the SSA and his duties, Kryska has taken an on-the-ground approach by visiting the terminals as frequently as he can.
He said that there are more than 700 employees at the ferry line, so it’s “hard to get to know everybody,” but he said employees now recognize him and come up to talk.
“So many people [at the SSA] are dedicated and hardworking. It’s great,” Kryska said. “People are very welcoming, very open with their thoughts and suggestions.”
Kryska has had previous managerial experience in the maritime industry; his most recent position before the SSA was as chief operations officer of a San Francisco–based ferry line called PROP. But Kryska highlighted the heightened challenges running the SSA compared with PROP. Here the ferries are a necessity. That’s why the Steamship is often referred to as the lifeline of the Island. Many people need to travel off-Island constantly for urgent needs, like medical appointments on the mainland. The only other modes of transportation between the Vineyard and the mainland are private ferry companies, some of which run only seasonally, or offer fewer trips than the SSA, or by airplane. In California, PROP was just an option travelers could utilize.
“There’s a different kind of urgency,” Kryska said.
Kryska highlighted that logistics of the ferry line — from various policies of the SSA to the number of cars that can be loaded onto a vessel — were more complex than he imagined.
“I kind of had an understanding that it’s gonna be pretty complex and a lot of puzzles to it, but it’s more complex,” he said.
Unlike in San Francisco, Kryska and his team at the SSA also have to weigh the expectations and needs of five port communities, the Vineyard, Nantucket, Falmouth, Hyannis, and New Bedford, all of which have differing wants and agendas regarding the ferry line. An example that Vineyard representatives to the SSA have used to illustrate this dilemma is that whereas Nantucket, 30 miles out at sea, utilizes the SSA like a boat service, residents of Martha’s Vineyard, seven miles from Cape Cod’s coast, use it more like a highway or a bridge.
That difference in attitude between the Vineyard and Nantucket was visible when Jeffrey Shapiro, the state inspector general, came to each community earlier this month to share and discuss the findings of the December report in an event hosted by State Sen. Julian Cyr, a Provincetown Democrat, and State Rep. Thomas Moakley, a Falmouth Democrat. While community members from both Islands questioned why former SSA General Manager Bob Davis, who oversaw the shelved website and whom Shapiro blamed for “critical missteps” to the project, had been retained as a senior advisor to the board, Vineyarders gathered in greater number, and asked more questions about the future of the SSA. Islanders especially called for improved oversight of the ferry line’s spending and board. Ted Gavin, the Vineyard’s new representative on the SSA board, said he would join a committee that would act as an internal “watchdog” of the ferry line.
Kryska said he was surprised to see the report when it was first issued so soon after he was hired. But he credited the SSA for halting the website project in September 2024, and pursued efforts to correct itself before the report came out. The report acted as a guide in how to move forward with managing the projects.
And despite the differences, during his interview with The Times, Kryska said he doesn’t think the two Islands are too different.
“I think they have the same concerns,” he said, although acknowledging the Vineyard was the more vocal between the two communities in calling for change at the ferry line, such as a term limit on ferry board members pushed by the SSA Citizens’ Action Group and under consideration by state legislators, like Cyr. For now, Kryska said, that decision lay with each board member’s appointing body, which would be the Dukes County Commissioners for the Vineyard.
Kryska also shared ways that the SSA is looking forward and plans to improve itself. He said plans are underway to review the purchasing process of the newest freight vessels — the Aquinnah, the Barnstable, and the Monomoy — through a capital planning committee and explore how to phase out older vessels, like the Nantucket, which is 53 years old, with an eye toward potential hybrid-electric vessels, although actually achieving the greener technology is less clear, especially charging infrastructure for the Island.
Once again looking ahead to the Vineyard, Kryska said there are additional challenges in managing certain aspects. Only a “handful” of SSA staff live on the Island, and many have to commute. But he expressed that the summer preparations were going well, and he was becoming more accustomed to the SSA.
“It’s like peeling an onion,” Kryska said. “There’s a lot of layers in there.”