Grybowski, CEO of Deepwater, Who Launched America’s 1st Offshore Wind Farm, Steps Down

Grybowski, CEO of Deepwater, Who Launched America’s 1st Offshore Wind Farm, Steps Down

Today, Ørsted — the company that purchased RI’s Deepwater Wind — announced that Co-CEO Jeffrey Grybowski has stepped down from his role at the company.

The company said in a statement, “Since Ørsted acquired Deepwater Wind in November 2018, Jeff worked with Thomas Brostrøm, CEO of U.S. Offshore Wind and President of Ørsted North America, to integrate the people and projects of the leading U.S. offshore wind development company into the larger Ørsted global operation. With the initial integration of the two companies now complete, highlighted by Ørsted’s winning bids for offshore wind in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, Grybowski leaves the company after more than a decade in the offshore wind industry.”

Grybowski will appear on GoLocal LIVE's Business Monday on Monday, July 29 at 3:30 PM.

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Grybowski has been one of Rhode Island’s most successful start-up CEOs. He led the unlikely Rhode Island start-up to America's first offshore success. As CEO he was featured in most every national business publication, the CBS Evening News, and a Citi Bank national commercial.

“Jeff is one of the pioneers of the offshore wind industry in the U.S, and his achievements are respected across the industry,” said Thomas Brostrøm, CEO of Ørsted U.S. Offshore Wind and President of Ørsted North America. “He built an outstanding company at Deepwater Wind and we thank him for his contributions in helping Ørsted build the leading offshore wind platform in America. We wish him great success in the next phase of his journey.”

“A decade ago, I started on this quest to establish a prominent place for offshore wind in America’s energy future. Rhode Island provided the leadership with the first project, and I’m proud to say that offshore wind’s time is now here. I am honored to have played a role in making that happen. Ørsted is a world-class company and one of the leaders in creating a green energy future for our world. With Ørsted’s leadership, offshore wind in America has a bright future,” said Grybowski.

In 2016, GoLocal named Deepwater Wind the Rhode Island company of the Year:

GoLocal’s selection for 2016 Company of the Year has many of the same attributes as previous great revolutionary companies in Rhode Island history -- companies like Slater Mill and Brown and Sharpe.

In 2016, Deepwater Wind changed America — it became America’s first offshore wind project. The completion of the initial project off of Block Island transforms the American energy market.

Deepwater’s initial success is as transformative as the first economically viable solar project, or when the first land-based wind project was built— the difference is the engineering degree of difficulty of building in the open ocean.

It also should not be forgotten that Deepwater had a significant competitor fighting to build the first ocean wind project. Cape Wind hoped to build off of the Cape Islands, but ran into an unusual NIMVOTO (not in my view of the ocean) coalition that included the Koch Brothers, Ted Kennedy and Walter Cronkite. The endless number of regulatory barriers delayed Cape Wind for better than a decade and ultimately doomed the project.

In the world of ocean wind projects, Deepwater Wind is small in scale booth in the size and number of windmills and the cost. It cost about $300 million to build. Yet, the environmental benefit is significant — annually 40,000 fewer tons of carbon dioxide will be emitted. 

“We’ve made history here in the Ocean State, but our work is far from over,” CEO Jeff Grybowski said. “We’re more confident than ever that this is just the start of a new U.S. renewable energy industry that will put thousands of Americans to work and power communities up and down the East Coast for decades to come.”

The genesis of this effort and this company began under the administration of then-Governor Don Carcieri. While success has many who claim paternity and Deepwater has been a global effort, much of the vision, patience and credit should be assigned to Grybowski. It is a decade long overnight success.

We look forward to Deepwater Wind's next success.