b'THE UNCONTAINEDwind projects, whether it be cable layingKing: Yes, for the actual wind part. vessels or offshore service vessels orYeah, but I mean, the business part what have you. itself is tremendously successful. We And so, theres a lot of good actionhave over 210 companies and more in the port. We have $120 million of thethan 12,900 jobs here every day, folks program thats been funded. Were in linethat come to work here. And weve been at the General Assembly and the [Rhodeengaged with our largest tenant General Island] Governor McKee, he proposedDynamics Electric Boat that builds the $60 million with the offer monies that arenew submarines for the Navy. You may in their purview, the General Assembly.know about that, but they are building a Were hopeful thatll make it throughnew strategic, ballistic nuclear submarine, the final budget cut, and well have anwhat they call the Columbia-class additional $60 million to help us with thissubmarine that will replace the Ohio-class project. strategic submarines that were built here As it relates to the Port, we alsoin the late 1980s.recently entered into an agreement withWeve been engaged in a program Orsted North America for their Revolutionfor the last three or four years and QDC Wind project. They lease the bulkheadhas built $65 million of infrastructure. space from us, and we are designingMost recently building a new pier to a series of improvements to add utilityaccommodate their transport barge that services and the like at those berths, tothey had to construct special to move homeport five crew-transfer vessels atthe Columbia-class modules between the Port of Davisville. both here and New London, Connecticut AJOTIve heard you say that youreand Newport News, Virginia. That thinking of the Park as a logistics hub.project just got completed. And theres From your perspective, what does abeen tremendous growth. I mean, I can logistics hub mean in terms of the QDC? go back to days when we had around King: It means home base for5,000 employees working here. We have operations, for both the construction ofhad a huge advancement and General the wind farms, as well as the ongoingDynamics invested $800 million in operations and maintenance. You maybuilding the facilities that were allowed to know the Block Island Wind Farm washappen by virtue of the investment in the the first project built in the offshoreinfrastructure.waters here in the United States. And the operation and maintenance crew for that five turbine project is housed here acrossFig. 1the [Quonset] business park.We like to look into the future, so we can capture jobs for the long term. I mean the construction jobs are terrific but once the projects built, we want to continue to have job opportunities for our citizens here long into the future.The home porting of the crew transfer vessels is key to that. To be able to have berth space to accommodate and service offshore vessels and become just the logistic space for the supplies for both people, food, equipment, tools, materials. Everything youre going to need to work some 15, 20 miles offshore building this project.AJOTWhat are the goals longer term? I mean, I think you alluded to them already, in saying that you want to protect and build these jobs. And obviously the commitment to offshore wind power is one aspect of that. Is this the soup to nuts type of vision that you have?13'