PORT ANGELES — The new president of Black Ball Transport Inc. plans to intensify marketing of its MV Coho ferry service between Port Angeles and Victoria.
“We’ve decided we’re going to sell and be proactive,” Ryan Burles said in a telephone interview from Victoria.
“We need to be a little less low-key.
“We are a ‘two-nation vacation.’ We are going to package the company [on the North Olympic Peninsula] and farther afield.”
Whether it’s Californians traveling to Canada or Canadians traveling to California, that’s another untapped market, Burles said.
The company’s 50th anniversary in 2009 also will be “very big in the scheme of things,” Burles said.
“We’re definitely going to do something in 2009.”
Burles was promoted last week from vice president to president and CEO of Black Ball, owner and operator of the Coho.
The passenger and vehicle ferry which runs year-round across the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Burles succeeds Wayne Barrett, who announced his retirement last month after 44 years with the company.
Barrett worked in Port Angeles. Burles will continue to work in Victoria.
Burles joined Black Ball in 1985. He is a director of the Victoria/Esquimalt Harbour Society and a member of the Rotary Club.
