Vancouver yacht builder turns to energy equipment

Vancouver's premier yacht-building company has won a $1 million federal stimulus grant that will allow a sister business to bring as many as 200 people back to its waterfront fabrication facility to begin producing renewable energy equipment by year's end.

The newly created sister business, Renewable Energy Composite Solutions LLC, is using the money to get into the wind turbine and hydrokinetic (wave motion) energy component manufacturing, said Joe Foggia, managing partner of RECS and president of Christensen Shipyards at 4400 Columbia Way.

For more than 25 years the company has built sleek luxury yachts for the world's wealthiest, using composite materials. Now it will apply the technology to new engineering and fabrication projects.

"This diversification promises to bring back people we've laid off in the past 13 months who work in composite manufacturing," Foggia said. "Seventy-five percent of our yachts are built with composites there are a lot of man-hours there."

Earlier this year, Christensen created RECS to go after new business in the energy field.

The $1 million grant, announced by Gov. Chris Gregoire and the Washington Department of Commerce on Tuesday, will allow the company to retro-fit manufacturing equipment to make vertical wind turbines, as well as buoys that use the continuous wave energy of the ocean to generate power.

RECS engineers are working with such entities as Oregon State University's tsunami center and SAIC, an international engineering and technology company based in McLean, Va., to develop wave technology and build test buoys. It has partnered with Skyron Systems Inc., an energy products company in Portland, to manufacture vertical axis wind turbines, which have field applications including onsite generation for urban and remote sites.

Scott Lindsay, a federal lobbyist and principal in SML Consulting, said the ocean renewable energy project is among the first marine-related manufacturing in the Northwest.

"This is really monumental," Lindsay said. "The grant helps justify RECS moving forward, helps them to bring in new clients and diversify the business."

Lindsay said that he intends to assist RECS with a second round of funding in January, when the state will begin accepting applications for another $18.5 million in grants and loans. The first round awarded $20 million to 19 applicants.

"The good thing about the Vancouver location is that it's at the epicenter of renewable ocean technology in the Northwest, with Washington focused on tidal resources and Oregon on wave resources," said Lindsay.

Kelly McDonald, board chairman of the Columbia River Economic Development Council in Vancouver, said the Christensen Yacht transition was an example of local efforts to attract new manufacturing opportunities to Clark County.

Jeanie Ashe, CREDC business recruitment director, said she expected to meet Monday with RECS representatives and those at the Southwest Washington Work Force Development Council to discuss job training for the company's new business venture.

"The key to these projects is that they must be turnkey," Ashe said. "They have to create jobs and have proven energy efficiency applications."

Rogers Weed, director of the Washington Department of Commerce, said in a prepared statement Tuesday that these renewable energy projects including the two in Vancouver demonstrate that "clean energy can be a powerful driver to strengthen and transform the state's economy."

The grant award is particularly good news for Foggia, who had to lay off 300 members of his 500-member work force in the past 13 months as the luxury yacht business sank along with the global economy.

"Now we can bring some people back and get into production by the end of the year," Foggia said.

Meanwhile, Christensen Shipyards, he said, has received orders for three new yachts. But that work won't start until next spring.

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Information from: The Columbian, http://www.columbian.com