With construction of Connecticut’s first offshore wind farm, Revolution Wind, underway as part of the nation’s first multi-state offshore wind energy procurement, leaders of the new Connecticut Wind Collaborative are playing a key role as conveners of industry, policy, workforce and infrastructure stakeholders.

Connecticut’s leadership role in offshore wind energy thus far has been focused on infrastructure, with State Pier in the Port of New London serving as a premier East Coast hub for the industry. But with the Connecticut Wind Collaborative now serving as the country’s first multi-state organization initiating stakeholder collaboration to increase efficiency, share best practices and expand workforce and supply chain opportunities, that role has expanded to include strategic and thought leadership across the industry spectrum.

Executive Director Kristin Urbach, with nearly a decade of experience in what is still a new enterprise for many, is supported by a Board of Directors that includes others at the forefront of research, workforce development, infrastructure development, and policy.

This unique blend of leaders coalescing in Connecticut has earned numerous positive media reports about the Collaborative’s mission to catalyze growth, attract investment, and foster innovation across Connecticut and beyond.

All of this early, wide-ranging work has made the Connecticut Wind Collaborative brand stand out in just a matter of months.

For example, two weeks after her hiring, Kristin joined Board Chairman Paul Lavoie and Board members Andrew Lavigne, Paul Whitescarver and Will Cox at ‘International Partnering Forum 2024,’ the largest offshore wind conference in the Americas and attended by 5,000 this year. Paul Lavoie, Andrew and Will were featured panelists while Kristin participated in the conference’s ‘Workforce Summit’ led by the U.S. Department of Energy. In a physical show of collaboration, Kristin arranged to have the Connecticut and Rhode Island booths side by side at the conference, which proved to be a big win for networking with global developers and supply chain representatives.

“It doesn’t get much better than hearing that Connecticut is the ‘Gold Standard’ in port infrastructure and regional collaboration,” Andrew said, referring to comments made by panelists at IPF.

For Board Chair Lavoie, Connecticut Chief Manufacturing Officer, the past 20 months have been a whirlwind, and the networking at IPF put it all in perspective. At the end of 2022, offshore wind was added to his work of driving manufacturing in the state. At the start of this year, the Collaborative was launched with seed funding from Revolution Wind, a joint venture of Ørsted and Eversource. Kristin and the full board are only three months into it. On a timeline of Connecticut’s role in the industry, IPF 2024 serves as a high point.

“I attended IPF in March 2023 and, admittedly, we weren’t prepared to tell our story,” Paul said. “Fast forward one year and we’ve developed the Connecticut Offshore Wind Strategic Roadmap, the state hired Andrew as the state’s Clean Economy Manager and created the Collaborative. We hired a dynamic Executive Director with more experience in the industry than most other stakeholders – and we’re getting shout-outs at an international conference. Not bad for just getting out of the gate!”