In Booming Life Sciences Sector, a Model for New York Offshore Wind

This op-ed by Karp Strategies Managing Principal and CEO, Rebecca Karp, originally appeared in the Gotham Gazette on July 21, 2022

Gov. Hochul makes an offshore wind announcement (photo: office of Governor Hochul)

With 500,000 acres set for offshore wind development in the New York Bight and Governor Kathy Hochul’s investment of $500 million to support the industry earlier this year, New York is well-positioned to scale the sector from the ground-up the right way: with a focus on equity, community benefits, and reversing the historic impacts of environmental racism, which for decades concentrated noxious infrastructure in predominantly lower-income communities of color that had no say in the process.

But to realize an equitable transition to wind energy and sustain a thriving industry, we need more than traction within the private sector. We need New York policymakers to make the same all-in commitment the city and state made over the past decade in boosting another high-performing sector with untapped potential: life sciences.

The New York City Economic Development Corporation (EDC) recently announced the city is home to more life science employment opportunities than any metropolitan region in the country. That’s a quantum leap from the 1990s. So, what changed?

Over the past 15 years, the city and state implemented a comprehensive strategy, encompassing a variety of programmatic initiatives and cross-sector collaboration — from sponsoring the development of a world-class technology innovation and academic hub on Roosevelt Island, to offering incentives for commercial life science development through the EDC’s IDA program, to facilitating internship programs to bring youth into companies, to committing $1 billion through the city’s LifeSci NYC initiative; to supporting new life science businesses in New York through the state’s Life Sciences Tax Credit program.

For offshore wind, we need the same kind of thoughtful programmatic interventions, including academic partnerships supporting energy research and workforce development, city- and state-funded incubators, internships for young adults, industry networking events and education programs, and training and support for MWBEs seeking to break into the sector.

Some of this work is underway. The New York Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has set a precedent for inclusive development by mandating 30% MWBE inclusion. Last year NYSERDA also developed, with the support of my team at Karp Strategies, an offshore wind curriculum for teenagers that is now available online as a resource for any middle school or high school classroom in New York. The NYCEDC has initiated a training program we are helping develop designed to upskill MWBE firms.

But there is still so much work to do on top of these first steps to set New York up as a clean energy leader. Here are three policies the city and state can set in motion now:

First, just as the Bloomberg administration provided Cornell Tech 12 acres of city-owned land when it won the bid to transform Roosevelt Island into an applied sciences’ campus in 2011, so the city and state today can look at property that they control, and prioritize land disposition across sites that could support the development of clean energy.

EDC has taken a step in this direction, issuing a request for proposals (RFP) to analyze an unused site on Staten Island for potential wind energy use. Turbine components can stretch the length of a football field so proactively addressing the issue of land availability, especially waterfront property, would help mitigate a crucial bottleneck in the growth of offshore wind.

Second, the city and state should ramp up efforts to create the green and blue workforce we need for industries like offshore wind and solar to thrive. Let’s build dramatically on the state’s investment in an Offshore Wind Training Institute through a partnership of SUNY’s Farmingdale State College and Stony Brook University on Long Island.

It is critical that educational opportunities are available to people in every part of the state and we should continue investing in training programs at public colleges as Governor Hochul has at LaGuardia, Hudson Valley, and Kingsborough. Beyond partnering with academia, state and local governments should be working with employers to expand the career development opportunities available to local residents, and holding developers accountable for prioritizing workforce development in their plans.

Finally, despite New York state’s nation-leading investment in offshore wind, the reality is $500 million only scratches the surface of the funding we need to compensate for chronic underinvestment in the port infrastructure that we must now modernize. The city and state need to go well beyond the $1 billion that New York City alone has committed to fostering the life sciences industry in order to address deferred maintenance that will choke the growth of offshore wind.

With so much momentum behind the growth of New York’s offshore wind industry at the city, state, and federal levels, now is the time to lean into an equitable transition to a cleaner energy system that delivers a windfall of shared economic benefits. The City and State should continue to seize this golden opportunity.

Op-Ed: With Supply Chain Issues Canceling Christmas, Local Ports Need a Game Plan

Rebecca Karp, CEO + Managing Principal - Karp Strategies

Continued investment is needed to ensure supply chain resiliency amid the demands of the global economy

Shipping containers stacked at the Port of New York and New Jersey.

If you haven't started your holiday shopping, you're probably already too late. That's the message we're getting over and over again this season.

Those hundreds of marooned ships we see waiting outside our nation's biggest ports, including Newark and New York—not to mention the empty shelves at grocery stores and the struggle to buy common things such as pet food—testify to a confluence of strains on our global supply chain.

The crisis started with the onset of the pandemic, as consumers increased demand while

factories closed. Supply was constrained.

Pre-Covid, however, our ports and supply chain were already in precarious positions because of decades of offshoring U.S. manufacturing and underinvesting in our ports. Now we must simultaneously address not only the immediate disruption of our supply chain because of the pandemic but also the consequences of longer-term, systemic challenges.

Taking the supply-chain crisis first: We need to create space at our ports to alleviate the pressure.

There are thoughtful ways to approach that. For example, the Biden administration should

mobilize the National Guard to construct temporary warehousing. And we can make shipping

a 24/7 operation on the East and Gulf coasts, as the administration has proposed for major

ports on the West Coast.

More made in the U.S.

Our ports need more than quick fixes, however, and places such as Newark and New York, home to the nation's second-largest port, need to invest in significant port upgrades, executed with an emphasis on ensuring the facilities are outfitted for the impacts of climate change.

The good news is much of that work is underway. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has advanced harbor-deepening initiatives and continues to move forward on investments critical to port resilience.

Ports across the country are making similar investments, and the bipartisan infrastructure package should offer some additional relief. But we need continued long-term capital investments in our ports to ensure our supply chain is resilient to the demands of our global economy.

Strategic investments can create thousands of good jobs, support essential infrastructure for our country's economic growth and recovery, and help protect our region's coastal communities from the impacts of sea-level rise.

But as I mentioned, there's one additional slow-moving crisis we must contend with to safeguard our ports and supply chain against the blockages we see today: We must at least consider what it would take to change consumption patterns and perhaps even require corporations to produce more goods in America.

Conversations between urban planners and local leaders are essential to understanding if and how the U.S. can eliminate supply chain obstacles by bringing back to this country manufacturing that went offshore decades ago. Immediate interventions combined with comprehensive, forward-thinking planning are necessary to meet the crisis at our ports in the supply chain head-on.

Although some Christmas presents might be canceled this year, investing in core infrastructure is a gift that can keep on giving for generations to come. This is the moment to commit to those investments.

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In the News: New York in an age of long COVID

Long covid, and other invisible disabilities, impact the way we move around and experience cities. Smart urban planning can make that experience extremely challenging or can be supportive of people's diverse needs. Rebecca Karp recently opened up about her experience with long COVID in an op-ed in the New York Daily News and the ways it has shaped her thinking about planning and reopening.

This article originally appeared in The New York Daily News on July 30, 2021

New York in an age of long COVID By: Rebecca Karp

I’m a CEO and founder of a successful small business in New York, and I have long COVID.

I’m far from alone; thousands of people, many of them young and previously healthy, are quietly battling this illness on two fronts: personal (How much energy will I have today? What will my symptoms be?) and public: convincing a long list of well-meaning people who until recently didn’t believe our ailments existed.

They are very real, and it’s time they are accommodated meaningfully.

A doctor discusses long haul Covid symptom's with a patient. (Shutterstock/Shutterstock)

Since my business is dedicated to smart urban planning, I think a lot about how we make people’s daily lives better. As the city “gets back to normal,” recognizing the diverse experiences of those living with disabilities is more important than ever

I got sick early, before reliable tests, when New York was still the epicenter. In the midst of my battle with COVID, I transitioned my company to remote work, trying to keep the ship afloat as planning projects across the Eastern seaboard were put on hold, and with them, a majority of our business.

Days turned into weeks into months. Spring and summer 2020 were our leanest times; despite having diversified and saved, we were not ready to go from growth mode to full-scale economic meltdown. Few were.

As my health deteriorated, I could make it to the kitchen table or couch to work a few hours a day. I called clients, applied for small business assistance and made contingency plans, all the while facing crippling fatigue. I counseled clients whose businesses faced the same market uncertainties mine did, and cried with friends who lost loved ones or were sick themselves.

I pushed through, unless I couldn’t. Planning was near impossible, since I never knew when I woke up if it would be a “push through” day or the opposite. The unpredictability was terrible.

After being told for months I was making it up, a doctor confirmed my symptoms were part of a pattern. Long COVID. At last.

Still, I refused to acknowledge, as the months wore on, that I had a long-term illness, what doctors now say is a disability — both because of the permanence it implied and fear of negative consequences. But amidst all the talk of getting back to normal, it feels worth it to put disability in bold lettering.

Life has gotten easier since those darkest days, but it’s important to remember that there are potentially thousands of New Yorkers whose baseline health has permanently or semi-permanently changed. It’s time that we have a full conversation about and with the people living with this disease.

We must make thoughtful allowances to ensure that people with long COVID can keep contributing — that workers are accommodated and the small businesses managed by people with this disease don’t shutter as a result of our inability to do so, and that we do better as a city to plan for accessibility.

How?

First, kindness matters. Physical illness and disabilities are not necessarily visible; we must do what we can to support each other interpersonally.

But personal understanding is only a small piece. It’s not enough to be nice to those unable to get around. Policies must be formed and infrastructure built.

My heart skyrockets when I climb stairs; I look for benches to take breaks when I need them. Standing on a moving subway is a non-starter, as is carrying anything heavier than my tote bag.

For decades, the city and state have invested stop-and-start in disability infrastructure like elevators on subways; we must do better, taking the time when we beautify stations to make them accessible as well. Other worthwhile investments in master plans: shade trees and benches.

Invest in research. We are a city of problem solvers, with some of the most august research hospitals in the world. It’s time for every level of government to put them to work. The money will attract tech and medical talent while solving an existential problem for our city and the world.

And for those of us living with long COVID, it’s important to not let this disease define us. We can and will still do great things.

As I manage my recovery, I’ve also steered my company out of a crisis and provided support to friends and colleagues. I’m looking to the future. I am still the CEO of a growing business. While I may need to show up differently in some situations, I can and do still show up meaningfully. You can too.

Staying silent is a disservice. People with long-term illness and disabilities are no less capable than those without. As the city reopens, it’s time to seriously incorporate this disease into the way we live and operate. We can all do our part.

Karp is founder and CEO of Karp Strategies.