Green Giants – Episode 27

Doug Smith (01:58)

Yeah, it’s a great question. I’ve been here about five years, right? As you said, background and a lot of things related to the region and had been the city manager in Norfolk most recently. And we can talk more about the organization maybe at another time, but the organization was at a pretty critical point and we were changing the model, changing the mission, doing some different things. And so when I got here, I told our team, I said you know, I think one of the most exciting things that’s coming our way is offshore wind and, candidly, I don’t really understand it.

I couldn’t tell you the difference between an offshore wind turbine and a ceiling fan at the time. I said, I think this is a big deal and I think the timing feels good. And so we leaned in pretty hard there and we’ll talk some during the conversation, I suspect, about something here called Go Virginia, the growth and opportunity for Virginia, which is something that was started 10 years or so ago, where the state supports collaboration among localities by giving some money. So we got a grant to really do a deep dive into offshore wind and really understand what the dynamics were going to be, what the supply chain looks like for offshore wind, what the workforce was going to be needed for. And that probably began my journey into better understanding at the time renewable energy, but really energy in general.

Wes Ashworth (03:14)

Yeah, and I guess expanding on that, what was the key moment? It just made you realize the importance of infrastructure in the Hampton Roads region and really to, as you said, sort of go all in.

Doug Smith (03:26)

Yeah. So Virginia, or Hampton Roads, in many ways is a cul-de-sac, right? We refer to, you can call us a cul-de-sac or you can call us a gateway. We like to think of ourselves as the gateway into the country in many ways. But when it comes to energy, we’re the end of the line for natural gas. And so the Atlantic Coast pipeline was proposed, Dominion Energy and some other partners were bringing this multi-billion dollar project to bear, and frankly, it was going to be the silver bullet for us in terms of making sure that we had an adequate supply of natural gas in our region, and I was part of the group going around advocating for it.

And for a lot of the reasons you see these projects get abandoned, it just came at a point in time after literally spending over a billion dollars with the team just so you know what, this is not gonna happen and we’re not gonna move forward. I got a call on a, I always remember it was July 5th, Saturday, when one of the senior officials at Dominion Energy called up and said, hey, I need to tell you something. We’re going to announce Monday that we’re walking away from the Atlantic coast pipeline. And it was a gut punch for the region. And a lot of us got together with some of the key folks from the state and said, what do we do? This is going to be a challenge for us. And I always remember Bill Murray from Dominion Energy looking at us and saying, you know what?

Hampton Roads is going to have to become the tip of the spear for renewable energy. That is going to be how you’re going to have to meet the demand that you’re going to have. so that really was in terms of, and I’ll talk about kind of what we did, but that was the aha moment where we said, you know what, we’ve got a challenge in terms of energy supply. And I’ll talk more about kind of how we’ve reacted to that.

Wes Ashworth (04:51)

Yeah, it’s an incredible story just kind of hearing it unfold from the gut punch to realization of, it needs to be the tip of the spear. And I love that, I want to get more into that as we go as well. One of the things you mentioned, so Hampton Roads has developed a regional energy roadmap, which I thought was interesting to explore a bit further. Could you walk us through, how that came about and then some of the key challenges or insights that have emerged from that process?

Doug Smith (05:24)

One of the realizations we had, Wes, was during the debates about ACP, we were really relying on the utilities for our facts and for our information and frankly, we got criticized for that a little bit, that you were simply a voice for the utilities and not an honest broker. So we said, well, you know what, we need our own set of facts, we need our own data. And I mentioned GoVirginia. We went to GoVirginia and got a grant to create what we called eventually this regional energy roadmap. And we hired a group out of Denver called PA Consulting, did a dynamite job for us. But what we said to them was, I don’t need a 200 page technical report. What I really need is something that a lay person can understand and that is actionable. Give us something when we’re done, make recommendations on things that we can do. And so that’s kind how that came about and would love to talk about that some more if it makes sense.

Wes Ashworth (06:27)

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I am curious, so when you’re, that’s all said and done, you know, the road map’s developed and you have this, you know, 30, 40 page document, whatever it is, what are the key things I guess you learned from that and how did that steer your direction and into, where you are today?

Doug Smith (06:44)

Yeah, that’s a great question. So I think learnings were a validation that in fact we did have some, we do have some very real challenges, a validation that we have some real opportunities, but really some good recommendations about process, right? And so the first recommendation was to create a regional energy steering committee, bring that collaborative group together that can start to tackle these issues, start to better understand these issues, so we did that.

First thing we did, we put this committee together. It has the city managers, has industry representatives, has utilities. The military is a really big factor for us. So the military has got, and we have 19 military installations here, right? We’ve got the largest collection of military presence, arguably on the planet. It’s really important that those folks have access to reliable, redundant energy. So that steering committee has been meeting for, gosh, close to two years now.

What I think the most important thing that came out of that was this idea that these are these are complex issues They’re not very well understood and then they’re not well understood by our policymakers our local Wes, we have, you know this, we have 17 Localities here, right? That means we have a hundred and two local elected officials that are making land use decisions about energy projects so we can talk more about what they, that has looked like, but we have really spent this last year and a half, two years really just trying to get everybody’s level set. What I say is, I don’t mind if you and I disagree as long as we’re working off the same set of accurate facts. And so we think our job is to get those folks the information they need to make the decisions they need to make.

Wes Ashworth (08:28)

Yeah, which I think is a really critical component. Sometimes it’s overlooked in a way, as far as that education, the advocacy with the elected officials especially, and then also just the communities and things like that as well too. So I’m curious of that.

You look at, I guess that need in order to educate those folks, to help build advocacy and those sort of things. So what did that initially look like and, how you started that process of educating them, filling them in, making sure that you are making decisions based on the facts?

Doug Smith (09:00)

I mentioned the 17 localities we have. Every region has a, what’s called a Planning District Commission. Ours is aptly called the Hampton Roads Planning District Commission. There are 45 elected officials on that commission. So a wonderful venue to sort of get to a pretty good chunk of the elected leaders and tell our story. We’ve, throughout this process, we have stood in front of them and tried to explain, hey, here’s what’s happening. Here’s what the dynamics are. Here’s what we’re doing. The challenge is that as you get about 15 or 20 minutes of a, you know, what could be a two or three hour agenda, you know, and I get in front of and, so it doesn’t necessarily sink in.

And I remember the last one we went to I made this I thought a very coherent presentation talked a lot about nuclear energy we’ll probably talk about nuclear energy on this call and I was really interested to get in a conversation and and I had made the statement that you know folks this is being driven by you know I held up my phone and the datification and electrification of everything that’s driving this. And Wes, the next thing, we spend the next 15 minutes debating electric vehicles. Somebody raises their hand and says, hey, who in here would actually buy an electric vehicle? Then half of the room, I would buy one, half the room, I wouldn’t.

And I was like, my gosh. I came back and called our vice chair and said, we’re doomed. I said, we can’t have a thoughtful deep conversation yet until we really start educating these folks. And so that resulted in we teamed up with the state chamber, the Virginia state chamber recently and had an energy summit in Williamsburg. We invited every mayor, every city manager, every planning director, every economic development director, business leaders. We ended up with about 250 people in the room and just really started this process of explaining what’s coming our way, right?

I mean, your audience is obviously outside of Virginia, 70% of the internet flows through Northern Virginia, right? The energy demands for those data centers is enormous. Dominion Energy’s integrated resource plan says that demand for energy will double over the next 15 years. Well, that has huge implications for everything we do from an economic development standpoint, not the least of which is land use. And so it’s a slow process, as I mentioned, 102 elected officials, I think about half of them are up for reelection every two years. So this is a constant so this doesn’t even begin to say how do we educate the 1.8 million people. So we’re starting with the elected leaders.

Wes Ashworth (11:38)

Yeah, and this is a good example of, this is representative of the entire country and globe, you know, in terms of all these areas and the education that’s there. And I think that’s the realization that the more we do this, you realize that that’s where a lot of that focus area needs to be, is just making sure people understand it, making sure they have the facts, just the basics down, right? And so we can start having some meaningful conversation.

So it’s your great case study for that in terms of starting that process and beginning that educational process, which is incredible. So as we know and kind of alluded to, Hampton has become really a hub for offshore wind. The Coastal Virginia offshore wind project, aims to install 176 turbines, making it the largest offshore wind project in the U.S. once completed, which is incredible, but just curious to hear more about that and just the key drivers behind that and how has the region prepared for that growth and what’s to come with that?

Doug Smith (12:49)

Yeah, great. Great. Another great question. So we, again, I think I mentioned we got a grant from GO Virginia to really study, not only kind of what does the supply chain look like in offshore wind, but this, you got to remember this is an industry that didn’t exist in the United States, you know, four or five years ago, so so much has got to come over from Europe. And so we, frankly, we spent a lot of time. I’ve got a young guy, Matt Smith, who drives, who’s our director of energy, who really did a deep dive in wind and really in many ways of these kind of conference has put Virginia on the map as a location that could accommodate wind.

And we see ourselves as both a logistics hub, meaning so, Portsmouth Marine Terminal has been repurposed as an offshore wind terminal. If you ride through the Midtown Tunnel today that connects Portsmouth and Norfolk, you’ll look over, you’ll see probably two dozen transition pieces that are just these enormous yellow tubes. You’ll see monopoles that are going to go out and be the foundations for this wind, and Dominion Energy has ordered a, is building a jackup vessel that eventually will take all these pieces out. And so that piece is happening. So marshaling piece, you know, has really happened and we can talk more about that. But we also want to be a manufacturing hub, right? So we want to make things here.

One of the, this is, I think, pretty interesting. One of the challenges we have is that a lot of the states have put local content requirements on their leases. So they say to the developers, we’re going to give you this lease for this offshore wind farm off our coast, but in return you have to give X amount of jobs, X amount of investment to the state of New York.

Virginia didn’t do that. And it’s been good and bad for us. And I would tell you, we’ve lost a number of projects where people have said, you know what, you’ve got a better site. You’ve got an unbelievable workforce. Think about it. You got to remember, we’ve been building nuclear aircraft carriers and nuclear submarines and repairing ships for decades here. We have the talent to do this work, but the local content requirement forces these folks to go to other states. So it really required us to zero in on what are the pieces that aren’t as impacted by that. And the one we identified was the undersea cables that connect these turbines and bring the power ashore ultimately. And so there’s an enormous backlog for that work.

There’s literally a seven year backlog if you order cables today. And so we just landed a Korean manufacturer, LS Cables, a company called LS GreenLink, a $650 million cable manufacturer going to Chesapeake. We’ve got the ability to probably bring two more manufacturer sites for two more manufacturers. Then, you know, this stuff is heavy. It’s waterborne. So it isn’t like you can put it in Ohio. It’s got to be on the coast. And so we’ve got two or three sites that are perfect for this. But then once that’s done, we’ll be done. And we think that’ll generate somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 jobs for the region when we’re all done.

Wes Ashworth (15:55)

Yeah, which is incredible. And it’s cool to see the just sort of like win, win, wins, you know, it’s a focus on energy transition, you creating a cleaner energy, you know, landscape overall, creating jobs, you know, obviously in the local area, supporting the economy. I mean, there’s so many, so wide and vast benefits to this and what you’re doing. And that’s what I always say. It’s like, yeah, we wish everybody cared about the planet and wanted to do the right thing. But even if that’s not the case, there’s still a great reason to support it, to get behind it, because it is good for us, good for the environment, good for the economies locally, good for jobs locally, and all those pieces.

It really is incredible to kind of see it. You see the offshore wind project, but then you see all these other kind of ancillary things popping up and supporting that that also are beneficial. Really cool to see those projects. What’s your involvement in just being the head of the Hampton Roads Alliance and thinking about this offshore wind project? What does that look like for you day to day and your involvement in that and how you’re helping make that happen?

Doug Smith (17:04)

Yeah, so it is several fold probably. At end of the day, our primary task is to grow the traded sector jobs in the region, right? That is for the companies that are selling goods and services outside the region. So it is helping the companies that are existing, but also pulling companies in here that are new. And as I think I mentioned earlier, in order to do that, you’ve got to have pretty deep knowledge about these industries. And so our process has really been, all right, figure out, and we’re talking about wind, all right, what are the opportunities in wind? Where’s the industry going, what are the needs, then you’ve got to have a site that will work for that. so then that site has to be virtually development ready. Folks aren’t going to wait around for you to bring utilities and the transportation.

So it is, there is a marketing component to it. There’s what we call a product development component to it. And then as we talked about earlier, there’s an advocacy component to telling folks this is something that we want to have happen. For example, wind is wonderful, right? But the wind doesn’t always blow. It doesn’t always blow at the times when you need the energy. You need battery storage to support that. not everybody understands what that looks like. Some of those projects have been a little bit controversial. Maybe they’ve been near somebody’s neighborhood and a city council has said, or the neighborhood shows up and says, I don’t think we want this facility near us. They don’t even really understand what it is. And so, a little bit of what we talked about earlier, we have to get in front of these planning commissions and other groups and explain what this is, what this is that is trying to happen. So it’s really, it’s a fantastic job and a fantastic organization and a lot of fun to work here.

Wes Ashworth (18:47)

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I want to touch on a piece you just mentioned just quickly, because I know it’s an issue that almost every company that I deal with and people we talk to have these sort of community, call it challenges or what have you, but just as you said, sort of the not in my backyard type of sentiment. And I love getting those, I think the more we learn about what’s working, what people have done that have really helped that.

So I’m curious just to hear a bit about how are you addressing that? How are you overcoming that challenge? I know you can never 100 % fully overcome it, but how are you winning in that conversation more often?

Doug Smith (19:17)

Yeah, so part of it, again, that education is not only for the elected leaders, not only for the community, but it’s also for these developers, for these companies and letting them know. I may have said this earlier, these kinds of infrastructure projects years ago were under the radar. People weren’t really paying attention to them. You kind of got your approval and moved on and that’s just not the case anymore. So I happened to, there’s a group of gas companies in town for a conference and we stood in front of them yesterday and on a panel and one of the things we said was pull us in early.

Let us know when you’ve got a big project coming your way. Let us know. We’ll help you with the narrative, if you will. We’ll help you understand who to talk to. We’ll support you if it makes sense to support you. The other thing that I think is really interesting, which I may have mentioned this earlier, we’re trying to get our arms around nuclear energy. I went to Virginia Commonwealth University, had a little nuclear energy 101 day long program the other day, and the term that I loved was site by consent. And what it basically said was, hey, if you’ve got one of these projects, don’t go try to force it on some community that doesn’t want it, right? Go find the community that will embrace it and will give their consent and do it that way.

So I think the entire dynamic around how these large infrastructure projects get developed, how they get explained to the community and where they get cited is really changing. And for your listeners that are sort of in that world of trying to bring these projects on, reach out to, know, every region’s got, we’re called a regional economic development organization. Everybody’s got one. Reach out to those guys and say, help me understand who the right players are and what the conversation is. And I tell you, the other thing you hear a lot of is, hey, a quick no is really helpful. So if it’s not going to happen, tell me before I go spend a lot of time and energy on it.

Wes Ashworth (21:21)

Sure. Yeah, no, no, absolutely. And I think a lot of key things you said there, one of us just get doing that early, know, that the earlier that you’re starting to have those conversations involving the right people, the better. Transitioning a little bit, so you alluded to just nuclear, which I know, you know, there’s people out there that really believe firmly in the growth and future of nuclear. You know, some don’t agree and that’s okay. We can have differences of opinions and it’s always invited.

So you’ve spoken about nuclear energy being where offshore wind was a decade ago. Can you, I guess, expand on that thought and what potential do you see for nuclear energy in the region, especially with the opportunity to develop small modular reactors and things of that sort?

Doug Smith (21:52)

So if you think about our region, I’ve said this earlier, among other things, we build, we’re the only place in the world that builds nuclear aircraft carriers, and we’re one of two places that builds nuclear submarines here in Groton, Connecticut. So think about this, we’ve been putting two nuclear reactors on an aircraft carrier and one on a submarine for decades, right? So what that means is we’ve got a community that is at least aware of that, some knowledge of that. You’ve got a workforce that knows how to work with these materials and with it. And you’ve got, as I mentioned, those 19 military installations, we have about 15,000 exiting military every year, right, that we try to get to stay in the region. A lot of them, many of them are exiting with experience in the nuclear energy field, right? And so we think there’s that leverage of Newport News Shipbuilding who’s been working in this space, workers that have been working in this space and then a port that is arguably the most efficient port in the country, the Port of Virginia.

And so the ability, if we do manufacture things here to move those things on. And then you’ve got Lynchburg, Virginia, who has Framatome and BWXT and some real expertise there. And so we’re, I believe we should be having some conversation between our two regions to try to figure out what these opportunities are. I just, when you see what the demand curve for energy looks like and think about I love this fact, most of your listeners will love this, but I love this; a chat GPT search is the equivalent of running a light bulb for 20 minutes, right? So the power demand of AI I don’t think we’ve begun to embrace and that horse left the barn, right? So if you’re gonna keep up you better figure out how to power this stuff and, again, I think nuclear energy a lot of regulatory things have got to come into place.

That’s why I say I think we’re several years out, but for us, I think the military is going to be a big play there. So you’ve already seen the Navy just probably two or three weeks ago put an RFI out and they listed seven bases, two of them are in Virginia, two of them in Hampton Roads that would like to explore nuclear energy at those bases. You’ve seen Dominion Energy put out an RFP for a nuclear small modular reactor at North Anna. So you think about, we have the Surry Power plant here in Hampton Roads and about 40% of the power that Dominion Energy generates comes from those two nuclear power plants. So I think there’s a comfort level that this is a technology that’s been in place in our market for a long time.

Wes Ashworth (24:42)

Yeah, no, agreed, and I think people argue back and forth in terms of the energy demand and what that percentage will be and increase and what have you. I think what’s clear, though, is there is an increase, whatever that is. And it’s going to require a lot of different options and solutions. Nuclear can be a big part of that, especially where it makes sense, as you outlined our area is kind of perfectly positioned for that.

So it’s interesting to see, and you’re seeing a lot more just investment, things like that happen in SMR, small modular reactors and just becoming more and more part of the conversation. It seemed like it was a long time where people didn’t really talk much about nuclear, now sort of coming back. But our area is uniquely positioned for that as well as you mentioned. You’ve also emphasized, we touched on before, just the region’s role in reshoring and decarbonizing sort of simultaneously and synergistically in a lot of ways. How is Hampton Roads preparing to become a leader in the overall green supply chain? What industries or sectors do you see playing pivotal roles in this transition?

Doug Smith (25:40)

Yeah, I’m going to maybe answer it a little more broadly and say that if you think about what’s happening in the country right now, we are remilitarizing, we are reindustrializing or reshoring, and we’re decarbonizing all at once with an enormous amount of federal money flowing, but also a lot of private money that wants to invest in these things and no direction being given to anybody. And we believe that you’re going to see a new regional economic order that comes from all of this spending. And the regions that seem to be teed up for success are military metros as we try to reestablish the supply chain for the military. We can talk about that all day. I think you will see innovation hubs that are going to take advantage of AI and get themselves in front of AI.

Hampton Roads is fortunate in that the Department of Energy committed $500 million to create the next high-performance data facility at Jefferson Lab and Newport News. So we’ll check the box as an innovation hub. We talked about first movers on climate change. Part of why you’re seeing, and this is public information, but part of why you’re seeing things like LS cable happen here is the IRA. Some very real tax credits, tens of millions of dollars going into these projects. We’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand what those programs are and how they can help our prospects and then trading powerhouses, right, and we talked about the port.

So if you believe that and you say all well how does Hampton Roads get ahead of those trends we’ve done three we hired a guy named Bruce Katz who’s a great thinker on these topics and and if he’s interesting to you Bruce Katz, Google Bruce Katz, new localism, brilliant guy, but he works out at Drexel University his team has done an analysis of all of the DOD spending in Hampton Roads. I’ll come back to that.

He’s done an analysis of the green supply chain and sort of what we think our opportunities in the green supply chain are. And then within the critical industry, same thing. What are the industries and then what are Hampton Roads’ strengths? And we’ve got that data now. And I can talk a lot about that. The one factoid that I think is fun is we’re the 37th largest MSA in the country. We’re the fifth largest DOD spend as a region in the country. So outsized DOD, and frankly, that was undervalued and underappreciated for the last 30 years. But now as you enter this very belligerent world and lots of craziness is happening, we’re going to be front and center. And so we think there’s a real opportunity for us to grow that.

And the way we’re looking at it, Wes, is because some people say, gosh, we should be diversifying away from federal spending, away from the military. And what we’re saying is, no, diversify within that. Lean into nuclear energy, that’s important to the military, that’s important to private, lean into cybersecurity that’s important to the military, important to the private sector, lean into uncrewed systems, unmanned systems, and that’s important to the military, important to the private sector. So that’s become our strategy in terms of how we’re approaching these three dynamics of remilitarization, reshoring, and decarbonization. So now we have the data.

And what we’re going to do with that data is we’re going to create what we’re calling a regional investment playbook. So, what are the three, four, five things that the region ought to be doing, ought to be investing in that can really move the needle in those topics? And let’s go invest in those three things and let’s go identify those federal programs, that private money that could support those things. And so you wake up in five or eight years and you have really moved the needle on two or three things.

Wes Ashworth (29:33)

Yeah, and I’m glad you brought that up in terms of that regional investment playbook. That’s something that I was curious to learn more about and get out to the listeners as well too. I guess, can you tell us a bit more about that in terms of how it’ll shape the region’s investments in renewable energy infrastructure and workforce development? And then kind of, guess, where is that now? Like, where is that today and where do you see that going?

Doug Smith (29:40)

Yeah, so at noon today, I’ve got Bruce on a video call with probably 30 CEOs in the area to kind of lay this thing out for them to help them understand what we’re doing and where we’re going and what we’ve so now we’ve got the data.

So now we’re going to spend the next probably 90 days doing a bunch of interviews of these people, the military, of different folks to really start to zero in on what should we invest in. I think it’s going to say something like we should have a DOD Center of Excellence here, an R &D facility that’s doing research that supports Newport News Ship, that’s training folks. Frankly, that could be a portal for, we haven’t even talked about AUKUS. AUKUS is the Australia, UK, US, trilateral agreement, that’s all about the Indo-Pacific. A lot of attention was paid to the aid package that was real controversial in Congress, call it 10 weeks ago, Gaza, Ukraine, what got very little conversation was $10 billion of that package was for the Indo-Pacific, $3.5 billion for this AUKUS program, and the Australians are matching that with $3 billion.

We think there’s a real opportunity, Wes, we’ve probably had 40 Australian companies here in the last eight, 10 months that want to get in the supply chain with Newport News Ship. So we’ll span these next few months really honing in on what are the big investments we can make. I think one of the things we’ll say, we’re not graduating enough engineers from our local universities and what programs should they be in. So I think you’ll see stuff around workforce investment. I think you’ll see things around supporting the supply chain for DoD. I think you’ll see more around decarbonization, maybe nuclear energy. But we’ll see that in a few months. And then the idea is to start to figure out, how do we fund these things and how do we bring these things online?

Wes Ashworth (31:46)

Yeah, it’s really cool to hear and it’s neat to hear just, I think all the different pieces of the puzzle, you and how it all comes together and in your unique position, I think you get to touch a lot of those and see a lot of those. So I think it’s a really interesting perspective. One question, I’m curious, is how can regions like Hampton Roads, so maybe some other regions out there in the country that aren’t as far down the path as we are.

What do you feel like, they can learn or advice as they think, you know, we’d like to start this transition as well, and investing more in clean energy and those sorts of things.

Doug Smith (32:22)

Yes, I think it’s, the world’s changed, and it’s A, embrace change. B, it’s the old adage, if you do things the way you’ve always done, you won’t even get the same results, right? You’re certainly not gonna get different results. so I think the, this is actually a fun story, so Jared Chalk works with us. He’s our Chief Business Development Officer. He does a fantastic job, and there’s a lot of times groups like ours, it’s almost like a dating game. We’ll get on a video call. And in his case, we have a bunch of companies in England that are talking about maybe investing in the United States. so several communities will get on the call and kind of make a pitch, right? So it’s almost a speed dating sort of thing.

And Jerry went first and he talked about, you know, the Norfolk airport and these new direct flights that Breeze Airways had to San Francisco and to the West Coast and then he talked about is we’ve got a phenomenal little startup community here and I forgot what the third thing was and then person from Atlanta comes up and starts talking about Hartsfield and their air connectivity from Hartsfield and then somebody from Austin gets up and talks about the 20,000 startups they had and the guy from New Jersey is kind of matching our story on the board and Jerry walked into my office he said, hey we need a new story and we were trying to be, kind of what we thought everybody else wanted us to be or what everybody else was instead of recognizing who we are.

We are a maritime industrial defense community unlike any in the world. People can’t be what we are so lean in on what we are and I’d say that to the other regions figure out who you are figure out what your strengths are and lean in on those strengths and that and don’t try to compete somewhere where that’s not your strength. It doesn’t mean we won’t take a company from a different industry and be thrilled to have them, but we’re going to lean in and do our deep dive on this military and industrial complex, if you will.

Wes Ashworth (34:26)

Yeah, I think, very wise approach, obviously. Yeah, and focusing on developers and utilities and others, I guess what advice would you give them? You that you’re in a unique position, being able to see both sides of the table, thinking about whether it’s here, other communities around the globe that are thinking about getting into an area, investing into an area, launching some of these projects in a local area, I guess what advice would you offer them in terms of sort of that initial start and then ongoing to make it a successful outcome?

Doug Smith (35:01)

Yeah, we touched on this earlier. I think it’s go where you’re wanted, right? The projects. So Wes, I would tell you that without tipping our hand at all, we’ve probably got five prospects right now that have projects anywhere from a half a billion dollars to three billion dollars, right? And we may get one or two of them, we may not get any of them. But the point is the scale of these projects that are out there now is just enormous. And so they know this, but you don’t have time to go where you’re not wanted. These projects are hard enough. So first of all, go where you’re wanted.

And then the second one is, I mentioned this earlier, find an organization like ours and we’re free, right? We have localities and companies that are investing in us to go be almost that concierge, if you will, that portal into the region for whoever it is. And we love talking about our region, just as everybody does. So go find that regional economic development group and let them be your champion.

Wes Ashworth (36:07)

Yeah, I love it, love it. Thinking about your outlook, so from your perspective, what you see day in and day out, being involved with a lot of these key players as well in our area, and they affect at national and global levels, what’s your sentiment going into next year? How are you feeling? What do you think the future is for Hampton Roads and the energy transition, the focus on renewables, and that is a greater whole as well?

Doug Smith (36:32)

I think this is our moment, right? And I may have said this earlier, I feel like what happened here or happens here has been undervalued and underappreciated. we tried to, it was let’s globalize, let’s offshore, let’s take everything out of the country. And that didn’t serve us well. You know, we underfunded, if you will, the military and the military complex. And, you know, now, as we lean in on decarbonization, all of those things suit us very, very well. And so the challenge we have is to get our act together. And I’m running around talking to all the city councils, the economic development administration, the universities, and I tell them a more detailed version of what I told you, and then my last slide talks about sort of that federal spending, that green supply chain and those critical industries. And we say, this is where I think you fit in, in each of these buckets. I want you to have this conversation about where you think we fit in.

But I think in 90 or 120 days, our region is going to have a plan and it’s going to show where Portsmouth, Virginia fits or William and Mary fits or Old Dominion University or Virginia Beach or Newport News or Newport News Ship. And I don’t know that we’ve ever had that before. We’ve had regional strategies before, but not that really got down to the level. And as we’re going around telling this story, it’s a lot of nods and a lot of folks saying, yeah, that that’s who we are. That’s, this is what our DNA is, let’s lean in on it and take advantage of this moment in time, if you will.

Wes Ashworth (38:04)

Yeah, that’s great. And I think to your point earlier, just finding those areas that make the most sense for your area, where each area is sort of uniquely designed and has its own personality, if you will. But you find that plan that works for your area. And you don’t have to be like this city or that city or that region. But you really got to find the plan that works for you. I guess as we get closer to time, I want to make sure we don’t leave anything out.

Any other key lessons you’ve learned as you’ve gone through this process or key things that you would like to get out there for listeners around North America and the globe, just things that you’ve learned and key takeaways.

Doug Smith (38:43)

Yeah, I tell you one that we were slow to understand the importance of the private sector in economic development. And I would tell you, our region seeded economic development to the public sector for a lot of years. And it was probably five or six years ago that we really leaned in and went to the private sector and said, you know, we need you much more engaged. We need you. Frankly, we need your investment, but we need your involvement. And so we’re, I told you we’re doing a lot with Australia and we’re heading down there in a couple of weeks, a small group of us, and then we’re going back in March. We’re going to take some of our business leaders with us and to sort of tell that story of not only, but also show them what the opportunities are.

So I think it is that collaboration between the public sector and the private sector. There’s things the public sector does really well, the private sector cannot do, like, buy and hold land, improve property, maybe improve property and hold that property. There’s things the private sector does in terms of innovation and creation. And at the end of the day, we want you at the table out of your selfish self-interest. Because if you’re playing well, if you’re at the economic development table, your company is going to do better as a result of this region improving and leaning in on the assets that we have.

Wes Ashworth (40:07)

Yeah, and I think that’s great. It’s been a recurring theme, I think, throughout this is just bringing as many of the key folks from every part of the equation to the table, you know, and a part of the conversation, a part of the solution, a part of the planning. So I think that’s no wonder, you know, I think the success is evident just based on the outline that you’ve shared there in the little bits and pieces. So kind of wrapping up, so as a leader who has helped Hampton Roads evolve into an energy hub and you’ve done some incredible things here.

What do you hope your legacy will be in this space? So what impact do you hope your work will have on the region’s long-term sustainability and economic resilience?

Doug Smith (40:44)

It’s a great question and maybe where I’d like to see the region and if you think about our region, frankly, we have really manufactured, assembled really big complicated things. So again, nuclear submarines, nuclear aircraft carriers, now offshore wind farms. What we haven’t done is we haven’t been further up the supply chain on the innovation end, the research and development end. And what I want to see the region and I think we’ll get there with some of the things we’re doing is bringing that innovation, that new technology, new tools to these new emerging industries and really take Hampton Roads and leapfrog to a region that has those high-wage, high-skill opportunities that make this a place that, frankly, my kids want to stay and be here, and that other kids around the country want to move to and say, because Wes, you know this, quality, everybody says their quality of life is amazing.

I got to tell you, any given city’s got 30 miles of shoreline, 70 miles of shoreline. We’ve got this ocean, we’ve got these phenomenal assets. I was in another region one time and trying to pick their brain and I won’t say where it was, they’ve had a lot of success and the guy at the end of the day said, let me tell you something, I spent some time in your market. If we had your water and your music scene, we’d rule the world, it is a pretty phenomenal place and we just want the world to understand that.

Wes Ashworth (42:09)

Yeah, it’s incredible stuff, and I would agree wholeheartedly. This is home and you said for so many reasons, obviously a lot of coastline is a big part of that, but it’s a huge benefit for how we can support these big wind energy projects and these other projects that are happening. So with that, we’ll wrap up today’s conversation with Doug Smith, but just from the challenges of transitioning to renewable energy to the unique role where Hampton Roads is playing as a green energy hub.

Your insights have really been invaluable. And to our listeners out there, if you’re as inspired as we are by the steps this region is taking to reshape its future, stay tuned for more episodes diving into the stories of leaders making a difference in the energy transition. Feel free to do some research, look Doug up. I’ll link some of those things in the show notes as well. And as always, don’t forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform and share this episode with your colleagues and friends. And thanks for tuning in to Green Giants, and we will see you next time.