Born in Oberlahnstein, Germany, William Hryb immigrated to Thunder Bay, Canada at a young age. Ukrainian by heritage, he is a freelance print and broadcast journalist, a member of the Professional Writers Association of Canada (PWAC), Superior Scribes, a professional Thunder Bay writer’s guild. Hryb is a regular contributing writer to various trade magazines, periodicals and newspaper publications such as Canadian Sailings Transportation & Trade Logistics, Bayview, On the Level, Cruise Ship North America, and the Ukrainian Weekly. He also is the President and Managing Director of Thunder Bay Shipping, Inc.
Hryb has been associated with the marine industry since 1975, representing a word wide network of ship owners and charterers. He was appointed in 2007 by the International Joint Commission (IJC) as the Commercial Navigation representative for Canada with the International Upper Great Lakes Study (IUGLS). The five-year study is a major bi-national examination of water level issues on the Upper Great Lakes.
Before entering the shipping industry, he studied Communication Arts, majoring in broadcast journalism. After his studies in the early 1970s he travelled extensively throughout South America as a freelance journalist. Hryb has interviewed a wide range of political and business leaders in his career, including The Right Honourable John Diefenbaker, the 13th prime minister of Canada.
Hryb is the co-author of Movers & Mavericks, a collection of profiles of people that lived in the Thunder Bay area over the last 100 years. Next year, Movers & Mavericks II will be released and later in 2014, he will co-author with Elle Andra-Warner the book about the luxury yacht Gunilda that sank in Lake Superior more than 100 years ago.
Since January 2011 he has been co-host and co-producer of the popular Internet radio program Crime Beat on the ArtistFirst World Radio Network.