After several months of interim management, Washington State Ferries will soon be under the direction of Lynne Griffith, who will serve as the assistant secretary for the Washington State Ferries Division.
Griffith, who will earn a salary of $144,768, will begin her leadership role next month with responsibilities including guiding the ferries management team and all ferry employees to meet safety, operational and budgetary goals.
“I am very pleased Lynne is joining the WSDOT team, and I want to thank Captain George Capacci for serving in the interim role,” said Lynn Peterson, secretary of the Washington State Department of Transportation, in a press release. “Our ferry system is an iconic symbol of the state of Washington and a vital link in our statewide transportation system. It will be in good hands with Assistant Secretary Griffith.”
Griffith has more than 35 years of experience in the transportation industry in transit, airlines and rail, from entry level operations to executive management. She has served as the chief executive officer of Pierce Transit and at C-TRAN in Clark County. She has also managed bus and specialized transportation for people with disabilities at MARTA, in Atlanta, Georgia.
“I am excited to work with the 1,700 men and women who are responsible for providing such an important transportation connection to Washingtonians,” said Griffith. “It is no small task to operate service reliably and safely on such a large scale, and I am looking forward to this opportunity.”
Noting his own ferry roots, Governor Inslee also expressed his support.
“I am pleased someone as capable and experienced as Lynne Griffith is joining our team to make this system even better,” he said.
Washington State Ferries operates 163,000 scheduled sailings annually and says it has a reliability rate of 99.5 percent. However, Griffith is coming to the system after a particularly difficult stretch this summer, when the ferry system saw an overloaded vessel, necessitating a return to Bremerton, a stalled boat near Bainbridge Island and ongoing issues with its aging fleet.
