William Scriber, Port of Oswego Authority’s executive director and CEO, has announced that he will retire on Dec. 31. The 67-year-old served as manager of port logistics from 2010-17 and served as executive director since 2018.
Q: Why did you decide now was the time to retire?
A: When times were bad, I couldn’t leave. When times were really good, I didn’t want to leave. Now that I’ve reached the age where I really want to start another chapter in my life — it’s time to say I want to move on. I want to spend time with my family. I have a lot of ‘honey-do’ lists to do. For me, it feels like the right time to pass the torch to someone else.
Q: What do you plan to do?
A: There are a lot of opportunities out there. I really want to explore them. But I want to just take the first three months off and just relax.
Q: Perhaps do some traveling?
A: I want to go fishing, which I haven’t done in six years. Then I will look for other stuff in the next chapter. I have had several offers for consulting work.
Q: The port has earned much recognition during your tenure. What are you most proud of?
A: Since I have been director, we have put over $35.76 million in upgrades and construction. The big kahuna was the $15 million grain export center, the only one in New York state on Lake Ontario. Our piers weren’t up to commercial standards. Now the west pier has been put back in operation; that was over a $4 million project. Also, we acquired funding to add eight slips to the Oswego Marina and secure an additional $2.1 million to construct the Goble deep-water marina on the port’s west pier. It’s a picturesque marina that connects right to downtown Oswego.
Applied for and received funds for rail improvement and expansion projects that will ultimately create the largest, private rail yard in Oswego County when projects are completed next year. Part of that includes replacing the port’s diesel rail car mover with an environmentally friendly electric rail car mover. Port rail traffic has quadrupled over the past three years.
Q: Any favorite memories?
A: We have continuously stayed in the black at a large level that was not ever reached by previous directors. I ran the port as a business. We are over a half billion dollars in economic impact in our region. Compared to, say the port of Toledo, they are 718 million annual impact — we are $513 million and Toledo is bigger than we are. I think I brought Oswego to where we are punching above our weight.
