The U.S. Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority’s governing board voted to name Ashley Bryan the utility’s interim CEO in a hastily put-together emergency meeting Friday.
Bryan had been WAPA’s chief operating officer since taking over the role in an interim capacity in January 2023. She replaces outgoing CEO Andrew Smith, who remains on the job officially until Sunday.
Smith resigned abruptly June 3, opting not to renew his contract while also accepting a $50,000 performance bonus stipulated in his contract.
The WAPA board voted 5-0 for Bryan as interim CEO, with board member Lionel Selwood being unavailable to vote. The vote happened while much of St. Thomas and St. John were without electricity. A yet-to-be-explained problem cut power to most of the district at around 10 a.m. It was restored at around 1:30 p.m., said Shanell Petersen, WAPA’s director of Communications. But at around 3 p.m. a problem with four feeders took large parts of St. Thomas and all of St. John offline again.
St. Croix also lost power briefly at 2 am. but it was largely restored by daybreak, Petersen said.
The territory has been under a State of Energy Emergency order from Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. since April 22. WAPA was dangerously short on funds in part due to U.S. Virgin Islands agencies themselves. The governor said the territory’s hospitals and the V.I. Waste Management Authority owed the utility approximately $11 million in past-due bills. Bryan bypassed waiting for normal Senate approval to tap directly into the territory’s $21 million Budget Stabilization Fund — also known as the Rainy Day Fund — to cover WAPA’s immediate obligations.
In 2023, WAPA said Ashley Bryan began her career as an associate electrical engineer at the Wind Turbine and Energy Cables in Tampa and quickly rose to project engineer, responsible for coordinating engineering and field activities on current projects and analyzing projects to optimize cost savings and ensure material specification and lead times remained clearly defined.
She graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of South Florida, Tampa, in 2011 and has accumulated extensive experience in the energy industry over the last 13 years.
Bryan went on to work as an Engineer III for the URS Corporation, managing an as-built ETAP Impedance model for the Department of Defense and composing technical modeling specifications for contractors to adhere to, which helped provide the necessary design and operation intelligence and electrical network situational awareness solutions to meet the needs of the department in real-time, according to WAPA. Upon returning to the USVI, Bryan joined WAPA as an Electrical Engineer I and moved up the ranks to her role as director of Training and Development. Her knowledge of the authority’s electrical operations is quite comprehensive.
