Business View Magazine | July 2020

142 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE JULY 2020 – we have a large demographic we’re trying to serve and I think we do that very, very well.” The Nantucket island community has grown tremendously over the years, and NRTA has evolved with it, to now providing year-round bus service on three main routes. It began as an extension of the summer shoulder season in 2018 and continued running after Columbus Day that fall. People are very grateful for the service, especially the increasing number of transit- dependent fulltime residents. As a quasi-public body politic of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the NRTA is its own entity, servicing the community of Nantucket. The administration is one arm of the Authority, and operations and management of the fixed route and demand response public transit services are contracted out to a private contractor, VTS of MA, Inc. They are in charge of hiring drivers, driver training requirements, drug and alcohol testing, day-to-day operations, and vehicle maintenance. Both the operating company and the NRTA administration do a tremendous job with small staffs. Leary recalls, “The owner of VTS started out as a driver in 1996, so we’ve been together a long time. We would not be where we are without the dedication and commitment of the VTS team. We typically see a big turnover in drivers and we used to rely a lot on visa workers. But that became more complicated and costly every year, so they now do a lot of in-country recruiting – people from ski resorts that do the opposite of what we are in the summer. That’s worked out well, although we do always struggle with driver shortages and end up constantly training and licensing new recruits. But a few of my managers have been with me 10 to 20 years. Some started as bus drivers and worked their way up. And we’re very close, we have the same goals and objectives. They are very committed to the community and we all help each other.” The administration staff consists solely of Leary, and one other employee whose main