'I just get excited': Meet Emily Reichert the new CEO of Massachusetts Clean Energy Center

The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center’s new CEO, Emily Reichert, visited the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal on her ninth day on the job to take her first look at operations in New Bedford.

As the head of MassCEC, a state economic development agency, Reichert is the public face of the organization and is charged with setting and executing the strategy for climate-related innovation and the deployment of technology in the state.

“It’s really my job to understand where the administration wants to take us in terms of climate technology especially, and the Healey-Driscoll team has made it very clear they want us to be world leaders, and innovation is something we do well here in Massachusetts,” she said.

Reichert said offshore wind is MassCEC’s primary focus with the Massachusetts’ shoreline a unique resource and the opportunity that comes from having different ports it can utilize for this purpose. She said that’s not to say any onshore projects will be ruled out.

She said Massachusetts will maintain a world-leading position in offshore wind by making sure it continues to be a place that leverages its advantages including its ports, with New Bedford and the Marine Commerce Terminal on the cutting edge of the new industry.

“I was just blown away by the scale of what’s happening here,” she said on her first day in New Bedford, describing her initial reaction to the size of the large offshore turbine parts for the ongoing Vineyard Wind project on-site.

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In addition to the New Bedford Marine Commerce Terminal, MassCEC operates the Wind Turbine Testing Center in Charlestown and the main office in Boston’s Downtown Crossing.

“We also have several sites on the coast that are former energy plants that we can now use as places to bring that offshore wind-generated electricity onto shore,” she said. “We have the opportunity to be in the front and to lead.”

She said she will also focus on economic development around solutions to climate change including clean energy, solar and large-scale battery storage, with continuing research in those areas, to level out the demand for electricity.

She will also be working on building the clean energy workforce of the future in Massachusetts as a third goal.

What is Emily Reichert's experience?

Reichert grew up in Arizona, earned her undergraduate degree in chemistry in Southern California and then a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and then moved to the East Coast to work for Arthur D. Little, a company providing technical consulting for large companies and the government.

When she questioned whether she was on the right career path, she decided to learn about green chemistry, ultimately deciding she could use her degree to do something good for the environment by helping make chemical products more environmentally friendly.

She networked her way to a group of entrepreneurs in South Boston building climate technology and clean technology start-up companies by offering support to early-stage startups and entrepreneurs in the product development stage.

How running at Greentown Labs helped her vision

Soon Reichert was running the largest technology incubator in the United States, the 100,000-square-foot Greentown Labs based in Somerville and the 30,000-square-foot Greentown Labs in Houston, Texas.

While she was there, Greentown Labs ran a program that was helping start-ups that were trying to work with offshore wind developers and have their technologies tested by and eventually adopted by offshore wind developers.

Reichert supported over 500 startups growing their businesses and trying to develop technological solutions to climate change in Somerville and Houston. She was building that business for 10 years before deciding to take a break. The break ended when she accepted the job at MassCEC.

“It was quite a journey, and I loved every minute of it,” she said. “The start-up piece and the innovation piece fit well with some of the work that MassCEC does, so I’m able to bring that to the table. Other areas are newer to me, but I just get excited with every new part of MassCEC I learn about.”

The night before her first visit to New Bedford, Reichert attended the final showcase of the Greentown Go program, a six-month program supported by MassCEC and Vineyard Wind that will help five start-ups work with developers to get their technology to where it would make a difference to the industry.

Working to electricity more 'green' and cheaper

Reichert said it’s the role of MassCEC to facilitate the offshore wind industry by providing the ports where offshore wind can be marshaled so they work with all of the developers to make sure the state can get the best offer, so to speak, with the goal of reducing the cost of electricity. 

She said MassCEC has worked with many companies with the goal of trying to meet the state’s climate goals by reducing emissions in a couple of different areas, including transportation, buildings and the electricity sector.

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She said the goal is to make electricity more “green,” and offshore wind has a big part in that as an alternative to fossil fuels, coal, oil or even natural gas. Over time she said the goal is to move towards just using renewable energy.

Need to keep start-ups in Massachusetts

Reichert said there is a focus on working with start-ups and other young companies on climate solutions with the goal of keeping those businesses in Massachusetts when it comes to economic development.

She said a start-up might be able to sell an offshore wind company a new kind of sensor that could be used to sense activity in the ocean nearby, or a new technology to identify if there’s corrosion happening once the turbines have been installed, or a new underwater vehicle.

She’s also working on building the clean energy workforce of the future in Massachusetts.

“We have all these young companies that we want to keep and grow here, and the question is do we have the labor force that is going to be ready, available and trained for the jobs that are going to be needed,” she said.

She said based on MassCEC’s clean energy workforce needs assessment, more than 38,000 additional clean energy workers are needed to meet the state’s climate goals with all the technology that needs to be installed in homes with the offshore wind industry taking off.

Creating more training connected to offshore wind jobs

“That is something that we need to figure out,” she said. “We have a lot of programs already running at MassCEC and are trying to make sure that we train not only folks who are in the workforce today but also try to build that pipeline from the students on up so they know what those opportunities are going to be and if they are ready to be trained once they are about to enter the workforce.”

As far as buildings are concerned, she said there are many technologies that are going to be needed, such as the installation of heat pumps in homes.  She said workers will need to be trained in how to install them, while heating, ventilation and air conditioning workers may need to be retrained.

She said there are also vocational-technical school graduates or people embarking on their careers who need training in those skills, and more workers in those areas will be needed.

She said with the goal of determining how to start earlier building a pipeline, MassCEC is working on funding a program right now that would build a curriculum that could be for students who are high school or middle school. It’s all with the ultimate goal of reducing carbon emissions going into the atmosphere.

She said embracing the installation of the next generation of technology is in line with the ultimate goal of reducing carbon emissions going into the atmosphere, and there are many opportunities for young people who are in the trades and are interested in technological solutions to addressing climate change.

“If they are aware of these opportunities and exposed to these opportunities, then you can make sure that we can build that workforce,” she said. “Ultimately we’re going to need to meet our climate goals.”

Standard-Times staff writer Kathryn Gallerani can be reached at kgallerani@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @kgallreporter. Support local journalism by purchasing a digital or print subscription to The Standard-Times today.

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: What Emily Reichert sees as the next steps for MassCEC and New Bedford