PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Paul's capacity for hard work was astounding and unmatched.
US Navy
While in college Paul joined the Reserved Officers Training Corps. Fulfilling a boyhood dream of becoming a naval officer, Paul was commissioned as a lieutenant JG after graduating Harvard. He became Chief Engineer on the USS Berkley, a Charles F. Adams class destroyer, and served two combat tours in Vietnam. Paul, though never violating regulations, questioned the wisdom and purpose of the war and later advocated an end to it with Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Despite his great love for the Navy and a career track to admiral, Paul recognized that such a career would be difficult to reconcile with family life. Feeling a stronger duty to his loved ones than even his country, he made the difficult decision to leave the service, throughout the years, staying close to his shipmates.
Deputy Secretary of State
After being discharged, ignoring an acceptance letter to Harvard Business School and a very promising career with Corning, in 1975 Paul became the youngest Massachusetts Deputy Secretary of State in the history of the office. After notable success, the inertia of government lead Paul to reconsider how best to serve the future. Understanding, before most, what environmental challenges we would eventually face, Paul directed his considerable drive and abilities toward conservation and energy independence.
Engineer
Paul was a creative leader and brilliant engineer that coupled a broad range of talents with passion and pragmatism. He launched Energistics in 1978 and Pequod Associates in 1980. Initially playing with the economics of solar-thermal storage technologies in the 1970’s, Paul devoted the next forty years of his life pioneering the fields of water and energy efficiency, making conservation economical at a time when few others took it seriously. In the 1990’s Paul and Pequod were merged with NORESCO to become instrumental in building and designing an industry funded by cost savings generated by engineered energy savings projects. With no upfront costs, this model has unlocked tens of billions in investment for energy savings and renewable generation, and is now a model employed across the globe by both small and multibillion dollar energy services companies.
Of his vast professional achievements, Paul was most proud of his work in establishing Vineyard Power, an independent cooperative responsible for bringing over 800 megawatts of offshore wind to the people of New England. Starting with just a concept, and lobbying the community outside supermarkets, talking to church groups and presenting to town halls across Martha’s Vineyard, Paul was able to garner enough support and funding to launch the project. Paul’s motives for this project were entirely unselfish, and quintessentially American: It was an entirely Ben Franklin type concept that should serve as a community-based utility model for distributed energy around the world. This massive project, against all odds, has come to fruition, ironically, just as Paul’s story ends.
Of his vast professional achievements, Paul was most proud of his work in establishing Vineyard Power, an independent cooperative responsible for bringing over 800 megawatts of offshore wind to the people of New England. Starting with just a concept, and lobbying the community outside supermarkets, talking to church groups and presenting to town halls across Martha’s Vineyard, Paul was able to garner enough support and funding to launch the project. Paul’s motives for this project were entirely unselfish, and quintessentially American: It was an entirely Ben Franklin type concept that should serve as a community-based utility model for distributed energy around the world. This massive project, against all odds, has come to fruition, ironically, just as Paul’s story ends.
