Former Western Massachusetts State Sen. and Berkshire County native Ben Downing has been named CEO of the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. The quasi-public economic development agency disburses millions to address utility affordability and climate goals by promoting clean energy projects. Downing served in the state legislature from 2007 to 2017, where he chaired the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy from 2011 to 2014. He also has experience working for a solar company and in the tech sector, and he ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2021. Ahead of taking up his new role in April, Downing —- son of the late Berkshire District Attorney Gerard Downing — spoke with WAMC.
DOWNING: First, the work that we do in supporting climate tech doesn't, could not, should not end simply saying, oh, we've got an idea out of the lab, and then who cares where it grows? What I have found in working at [MIT-founded tech nonprofit incubator] The Engine is that when founders know all of the resources that Massachusetts has — and I mean that, resources, in the broadest sense, the potential partnerships, the innovative manufacturers that are in the state — they're incredibly excited at the opportunity to grow here. I think too often in the past, the story that had been told to founders is effectively that the state is Harvard Square to Logan Airport, and we are so much more than that. You see Massachusetts doing this in a variety of different ways, but I got to do it, working at The Engine, trying to connect teams with innovative manufacturers. Some of the folks in plastics and injection mold and tooling, working in the Berkshires- That work that they have done for the better part of 20, 30, 40, years growing up out of [General Electric] is just as innovative as anything coming out of a lab in MIT. And the more we're able to connect those early-stage founders with teams here in state, the better able we are to make sure that they grow as much as possible here. And so, what it's going to look like from technology to technology is going to be different. But I think from my experience at The Engine, I've seen that the Berkshires stand out in being a community that, not surprising to me, has been doing it, can pull itself together, can show what it's got to support teams. And I think it's a credit in particular to the work that the Ben Sosne and the team at the Berkshire Innovation Center are doing, that Jon Butler and the team at 1Berkshire are doing, and the broader, in particular, private sector leadership in the Berkshires.
WAMC: Now you're stepping into this office at a time when the federal government is almost uniquely opposed to clean energy and is taking a lot of action to roll back federal support for that kind of work. What are your thoughts on the challenge that the Trump administration's agenda poses to this kind of work you're trying to do in Massachusetts?
So first, I could imagine no better time to come into this role and into this work. I've had folks say, well, why would you want to do it now? This is the perfect time. This is a time when we are challenged, but when I think we have an incredibly strong case to be made that regardless of your political affiliation, regardless of your background, if you care about creating jobs and reducing the cost of energy in Massachusetts, then you ought to care about deploying climate technologies, you ought to care about us doing more on energy efficiency, and you ought to care about us doing more to deploy clean energy and battery storage across the state- Offshore wind, solar, new technologies, you name it. Yes, there's going to be challenges from the federal level. I'm now- It’s a little bit different than when I was a state senator. I'm now a dad to a soon to be nine- and six-year-old, and we try to tell our sons every day that you focus on what you can control. I can't control- At Mass CEC, we can't control in Massachusetts what's going on at the federal level. What we can control is our ability to more quickly deploy the technologies that we have here. We'll want to step in where we can strategically to fill the gaps that the federal government has left behind, and we want to highlight those. But what we really want to do is focus on where can we make meaningful progress to deploy these new technologies and to reduce costs in the short term so we can put some folks to work.
We've lately seen the Healey administration embrace AI here in Massachusetts, a technology somewhat well known for not being a terribly clean energy efficient sector. What are your thoughts on squaring that? How could Massachusetts both embrace a clean energy agenda and also something that's so energy intensive, like AI?
Yeah, it's a great point. I mean, I think the AI story is certainly a complicated one. I don't think any of us benefit by putting our head in the sand and saying, I'm going to ignore the technology altogether. It's going to have massive ripple effects throughout society. And so, I think it's our job, as the governor and others have promoted, to try to use it in an efficient and impactful way, right, to make sure that it's applied for benefit. We haven't seen the massive outgrowth of potential data center development in Massachusetts that's really driven a lot of the pain points around cost that we've seen in other states, but certainly we want to be smart about that, and a big part of that is making sure that we're deploying more clean energy, right, so that we can have a clean, abundant energy future. So, I think the jury is far from closed yet on AI. We've got to be smart about how and where and when we use it, and I think there's going to be cases — new material development, new business model development -- where it can be helpful on the climate front, but certainly it's an issue that we need to track and monitor at the CEC.
And lastly, as far as setting out personal benchmarks for what you want to accomplish at the CEC, what are a few targets you really want to hit with this new leadership position?
Yeah, it's a spectacular question. I think the biggest one is going to be, what are the total number of clean energy jobs in Massachusetts? And there are parts of that that are beyond our reach and that will be impacted by federal, in particular, uncertainty, if not outright attacks. But the more we see the clean energy workforce and the climate tech workforce in Massachusetts growing, the better we're doing. That's number one. Number two is the amount of megawatt hours of clean energy that's out there being deployed. Our work is not done just when we get the technology out of the lab. We need to be supporting both, sort of the more established forms of clean energy and the newer forms to get them out there, growing and scaling. And then on a more qualitative point of view. Josh, I want every founder, leader of a clean energy company across the state, and inventor to know that MassCEC is the organization for them, and we are here for them to help them if they're working to make investments in Massachusetts to reduce the cost of energy and to help make Massachusetts the place that every last one of these companies wants to grow in scale. So, that's maybe a little bit squishier on that last one, but I think from a mission perspective, we need to be out there competing for these teams, their time, their dollars, their attention, to get them growing here, and I think we can do that in a way that also helps bring down costs and put people at work.
Ben Downing, thank you so much. We really appreciate it.
Thanks so much. Josh, great to talk to you.
Downing is a former WAMC commentator.
