Borough manager Brad Ryan submitted his resignation to the Skagway Assembly on Sept. 27. His last day will be in the beginning of January 2025.
Ryan accepted the Skagway borough manager position in 2019, starting his tenure on Sept. 1 for a three-year contract.
Before he moved to Skagway, Ryan served as Haines’ facilities director and as interim borough manager twice. Once in 2015, and again in 2017 after the assembly fired Bill Seward. He applied for a permanent borough manager position that year but ultimately lost out to Debra Schnabel after a controversial hiring process that included the assembly polling staff, the majority of whom backed Ryan for the job.
Skagway’s current deputy borough manager Emily Deach and treasurer Heather Rodig worked together to fill the position until Ryan came aboard. Deach took on the part-time challenge three times while maintaining her job as then borough clerk; she has expressed interest in the position.
Skagway Borough code allows for the assembly to appoint a new manager without formal advertising or a minimum of candidate applicants, although some of those methods such as in-person interviews and search committees have been used in the past decade. Ryan was in a final group of six applicants in 2019.
Ryan has accomplished a lot over the last five years. Within six months of arriving in Skagway, the COVID-19 pandemic threw the cruise industry, Skagway and the world into a spiral. Coming out of the pandemic, Ryan negotiated completion of the end of a 55-year lease with White Pass & Yukon Route. On the tail of the lease term was an angry cliff prone to slides above the railroad dock.
He worked through the future of Dahl Memorial Clinic and a $65 million bond to update the ore dock and the marine services area. Of course, the new floating ore dock fell apart on the way to Skagway, but Ryan also managed to work with parties to get the dock to Skagway a week before the first ship was to tie up.
The order of replacing Ryan will be on the next assembly agenda and will most likely discuss reviewing the job description and salary, which has not been updated in years. In his letter to the assembly Ryan supported Deach as the next borough manager.
“I am in full support of Emily Deach assuming the manager position. She is more than qualified,” he wrote.
Assemblymember Orion Hanson agrees.
“We certainly know who [Deach] is, as in her capability. She’s been quietly running our government for a long time, with tremendous intelligence and objectivity. Just her ability to negotiate all the different paths of government – it’s always impressed me,” Hanson said.
He believes that Deach’s familiarity with the staff and city hall will work well with employee morale and productivity.
Ryan has taken a position with the Alaska Sealife Center in Seward. He starts in early January. His family may or may not join him right away as they negotiate school schedules and his wife Jolanta’s employment.