Updated Dec. 16
Steamship Authority general manager Robert Davis received positive feedback from the ferry line’s board Tuesday morning as part of his annual evaluation. The four board members present credited Davis with an overall solid performance under the extraordinary pressures brought on by the novel coronavirus pandemic.
The board was advised of a major reservations overhaul initiated following a system crash in January, when general reservations opened for the season. The board voted 4-0 to award Thames Shipyard a $808,138 contract to overhaul the Governor, despite Rhode Island’s Senesco Marine being the low bidder. Davis noted that under state law, a former SSA employee who works at Senesco has yet to satisfy a one-year cool-off period before working on the ferry line’s ferries.
Nantucket board member Robert Ranney told Davis and his port colleagues he was pleased with Davis’ performance in 2020. “I think Bob is doing a great job in a very highly challenging environment,” he said. Ranney said Davis hasn’t failed to meet the demands of his Nantucket constituency.
“I think Bob is doing a fantastic job,” Ranney added. He stopped short of saying there was no room for improvement, because he felt there’s always room for improvement. That said, Ranney gave Davis a 95 percent approval rating across the board.
Barnstable board member Robert Jones also found Davis evidenced a strong managerial year. Jones characterized his evaluations of Davis to be in the 90th percentile. The one demerit he had for Davis was the ups and downs of the Woods Hole terminal building design saga. Jones was quick to say forces were at play beyond Davis’ control in that matter, but he also said there was foot-dragging on the part of the SSA. Jones said following the retirement of former SSA general manager Wayne Lamson, Davis has had to replace 75 percent of the senior management, and has done a good job securing “competent replacements.”
Falmouth board member Kathryn Wilson, who rotates to the chair in 2021, said Davis had room for improvement in his oversight of the Woods Hole reconstruction project, especially with regard to community relations. She noted the pandemic further taxed that project.
“I was hugely impressed with Bob’s ability to navigate the network and the application for the governmental subsidies in the past few months,” she said. “He did an absolutely spectacular job in that regard. I’m proud to work with Bob, and appreciate all his efforts.’
The Vineyard’s board member, Jim Malkin, who made his last appearance as chair before ceding to Wilson, said he found it “very difficult” to evaluate Davis on his stated goals and objectives due to the “unprecedented and unanticipated impact of the pandemic.” Malkin said he was unable to dive deep in most areas because of restrictions brought about by the pandemic, so he had little corroborating data to work with, and received most of what he learned directly from Davis himself. Nevertheless, Malkin put Davis in the 90th percentile as far as achieving stated goals and objectives. He offered a similar perspective on Davis’ management. “Without more direct observation and contact with SSA staff and operations, it’s difficult for me to fairly quantify the detailed list of the elements of management,” he said.
That said, Malkin professed to be “hugely impressed” with Davis’ knowledge of SSA history, operations, and financials.
“Bob has an extremely high work ethic,” Malkin said. “And I think he’d benefit from less involvement in day-to-day operations.” Malkin went on to say Davis “has done a very solid job this year during an extraordinarily miserable operating environment. He gets high marks from me for cost control, for communicating with the board, [and] for managing the COVID-funding relief efforts from the state and the federal governments.” Malkin also said Davis has been a hard worker on vessel health protocols, and has made a significant improvement in curbing vessel mechanical failures.
Malkin said he remains concerned about Woods Hole reconstruction project change orders, and would like to see anonymous evaluations of Davis from SSA employees starting next year.
New Bedford board member Maura Tierney wasn’t present at the meeting to offer evaluation comments on Davis.
SSA general counsel Terence Kenneally told Davis the staff appreciates “the positive feedback and encouragement you give to all of us.”
Davis thanked the board for the “kind words” in the evaluations, but directed praise away from himself, and described the forward momentum of the ferry line as a “team effort.”
Making reservations
Davis told the board changes are being made to prevent a repeat of the “well-documented” failure of the 2020 Martha’s Vineyard reservation opening. The changes include a new mainframe computer that he described as twice as fast, with five times the capacity of its predecessor, a transfer of servers to a cloud-based data system, and creation of a virtual waiting room to “more precisely control how many connections are being allowed through the reservation system at any one time.” He noted the waiting room will let users know where they are in the queue, and how long they’ll be there.
Davis said system testing is underway, and a working group aims to have a new website and app later in 2021, but the lion’s share of improvements will be in place for the 2021 opening. Steamship Authority IT director Curt Van Riper told the board he expects the switch over to the new system to happen next week. “Load tests will continue all the way through to the middle of January,” he said.
The MV Governor is expected to be in Connecticut at Thames Shipyard from Feb. 9 to April 5 for various general repairs and a Coast Guard hull exam. While Senesco underbid Thames, it did not get the contract. Bids packets were sent to 10 shipyards, Davis said, and returned bids were opened Dec. 10.
“The bid from the apparent low bidder, Sensco Marine of North Kingstown, R.I., was deemed not responsible,” Davis said. “This determination was reached as a former employee of the Steamship Authority is employed by Senesco, and under the commonwealth’s state ethics law, the one-year cooling-off period has not been satisfied.”
As The Times previously reported, former SSA director of maintenance and engineering Carl Walker went to work for Senesco, ostensibly as superintendent of the repair yard. However, Walker wasn’t mentioned by name Tuesday. In May, a Senseco spokesman told The Times Senesco didn’t see any procurement or ethics violations at play when the Katama was at its shipyard. Walker was still employed by the SSA when the Katama bid package had been assembled and the contract awarded to Senesco. Davis told The Times at the close of Tuesday’s meeting the Katama also fell afoul of the cool-off period. Senesco and SSA came close to litigation over the vessel due to an impasse on contract renegotiations in light of the pandemic. But they were able to settle, and the vessel went to Thames Shipyard.
In other business, SSA director of marine operations Mark Amundsen said he expects a final inspection of repairs to the Oak Bluffs terminal on Dec. 18, and that the contractor will demobilize shortly thereafter. Amundsen said no change orders arose during the work.
Treasurer Mark Rozum said passenger traffic was down just under 21 percent for November, excursion vehicles were down 22 percent, standard-fare vehicles were up 24 percent, and truck traffic was up 1.4 percent. The projected deficit to date is in the $10.5 million “range,” he said.
On behalf of the board, new chair Wilson thanked Jim Malkin for his work as chair in a challenging year. Malkin thanked the board, and said the SSA “needs to do a better job of proactively communicating the things that we do well on a day-to-day basis, and also on a mid- to long-term basis. There’s a great story here that needs to be told … We’ve done a great job improving the service, the mechanical functioning of the vessels. I think we’re communicating a lot better with our mobile apps as well as our websites. There’s always room for improvement, and I think the organization will get better over time. I look forward to being part of that under the new chair.”
Updated with additional information from the meeting.