She began her career on the water, 18 years ago, as a youth, collecting tickets as a deckhand on the Chappy Ferry. Last Friday, Lieutenant Anna-Liza Villard-Howe of Bourne took charge as captain of the 72-foot research vessel Gloria Michelle, a National Oceanographic Atmospheric Administration research vessel. The vessel works for the Northeast Fisheries Science Center in Woods Hole.

Lieutenant Villard-Howe was honored in a morning change of command ceremony, with the Woods Hole Great Harbor in the background, and the distant Vineyard on the horizon. Dressed in white, she was surrounded by family, her husband Tim Michaud and friends, as she stepped in to replace her mentor, Lieut. Carl Rhodes, of Mashpee. She also made history by being the first to operate an all-woman crew vessel in NOAA.

In a quiet conversation in the vessel’s galley three days before the ceremony, Lieut. Villard-Howe told the Gazette her career choice didn’t come easy, though she had plenty of waterfront experience. “This was not part of a master plan,” she said. “I grew up on Chappy,” she said, and with a complete awareness of the seasonal economy here. “I didn’t want three-season employment. I wanted a year-round job. I wanted to know where my check was going to come from,” she said.

NOAA research vessel Gloria Michelle.
Ms. Villard-Howe is captain of NOAA research vessel Gloria Michelle. — Mark Lovewell

In addition to working on the water when she was younger, she crewed in the Edgartown Yacht Club racing a Rhodes 19. She played the flute in the Edgartown school band. After graduating from Falmouth Academy in 1997, she went on to Vassar College and got a B.A. in economics, graduating in 2002. She tried insurance, working as an actuary. “It is very hard-core statistical work. They had a series of professional exams. I hated them. I walked away from it,” she said.

A cross-country drive in 2004 with her sister changed her thinking.

“My sister Katherine had just done a tall ship sail from Hawaii to Seattle,” the lieutenant said. “She spent five days saying to me: ‘You can make a living on the water.’”

In the fall of that year, an opportunity arose on the Naushon ferry, not far from her home.

“There was an advertisement for a deckhand,” the lieutenant said.

It is a 20-minute trip from Woods Hole to Hadley Harbor on the 53-foot ferry Cormorant.

“Woods Hole Pass is awesome. It is the best training for a captain. You get the water, the current, the narrow channel. You have the vessel traffic. You are on the radio with other vessels,” she said. “Unlike a lot of ferries that have a ramp, you are actually docking at Hadley. You have to drive in and dock every time. It was great training,” she said. The job, along with the experience, pointed her to a 100-ton Master’s license.

While on the Woods Hole waterfront, she also became aware of working on research vessels. NOAA offered her great opportunities. Beginning in 2006 — after a year of returning to captain the Chappy ferry— she attended United States Maritime Academy in Kings Point and graduated second in her class, and as top female officer. Her first ship assignment was as a junior officer on the 231-foot NOAA ship Rainer out of Seattle. The ship surveys the bottom and gathers information used for creating underwater topographical maps that are used in charting. It was a wonderful three-year experience, she said, and took her as far north as the Alaska coast.

Two years ago, Lieutenant Villard-Howe began working on The Gloria Michelle, a 72-foot research vessel that had a previous life as a fishing dragger in the Gulf of Mexico.

The lieutenant took to the vessel, assisting and often taking over for the captain. The Gloria Michelle does a lot of fish and shellfish surveys. She assists the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries in its annual inshore water survey of the health of local fish.

But the vessel has also been engaged in cutting-edge science, finding new ways to count fish without harming them. The new technology — which utilizes computerized underwater video techniques — eventually promises to bring about a whole new way of assessing the health of fish stocks swimming in the ocean.

Being a woman captain aboard a research ship isn’t so unique to NOAA, though she and her junior officer Shannon Hefferan make history as the first NOAA vessel with an all-woman crew. Lieut. Villard-Howe said NOAA has long employed women aboard ship, as both scientists and crew — including officers — putting them a good deal farther ahead of other branches of service.

In 2005, when Ms. Villard-Howe was captaining the Chappy ferry, she recalled a conversation she had on the topic of a male-dominated maritime world.

“Someone asked me: ‘What is it like to be alone in a man’s world?’

“I looked at the two ferries, criss-crossing the channel. Two captains, two deckhands and two shorehands. And all of them were women. I had to stop and think: I never thought of being a woman in a man’s world.”

The Gloria Michelle is a perfect fit for the lieutenant. “At the [NOAA] corps it is very hands-on. That is part of my job here. We do all the preventative maintenance, oil changes. For all the mechanics and systems, we are the engineers,” she said.

“Between working on the Cormorant and the Chappy Ferry, I grew up on these boats. I was used to jumping into work on the engine with Roy Hayes [former owner of the Chappy Ferry]. On one Fourth of July, the piston blew out a valve. We were in there with the engine, flopping out a head, after six hours of work. I grew up with that.”

Though she has traveled the waters of the Gulf of Maine and all around Cape Cod in the Gloria Michelle, the lieutenant has yet to bring the vessel into a Vineyard port. “That would be my dream,” she said. “I’d like to tie her up at Memorial Wharf some day,” perhaps a way to introduce young people to the work of NOAA.

She does pass the Vineyard often. Her mother, Elizabeth Villard, lives on Chappaquiddick. “Every time I go through Muskeget Channel, I call up my mother on the phone,” she says. “She comes out and waves.”

More information about the change of command.