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The president of the Senate takes a job at a solar energy company

Posted on by darion

Over the past several decades, the speakers of the Maryland General Assembly have been lawyers, business owners, or longtime local government employees.

So it seems significant that Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) has just taken a job as general counsel and senior vice president at a renewable energy company.

This is obviously an important step for Ferguson personally and professionally, but it also appears to be, in subtle and indirect ways, making renewable energy a policy priority in Annapolis. It also highlights the challenges members of Maryland’s “citizen legislature” face in trying to make a living.

Ferguson joins CI Renewables, a Baltimore-based solar energy company with a dozen employees. Ferguson said that as the company’s general counsel, his primary focus would be on “transactional work” rather than lobbying or political decision-making.

“It’s exciting,” he said in an interview. “I feel like I’m back in law school a little bit. I’m trying to take advantage of the commercial and contract law classes I taught 14 years ago.”

Ferguson, however, said he fully shares the company’s mission and wants to help CI Renewables realize its potential.

Founded in 2010 and originally headquartered in New Jersey, the company develops, owns and operates commercial and industrial solar energy generation facilities throughout the Mid-Atlantic. As the company’s projects in Maryland grew, CI executives with Maryland roots relocated corporate operations to Baltimore two years ago.

Several years ago, the company won a 25-year contract with a five-year option to help Howard County officials dramatically increase the use of solar energy on county-owned facilities and farmland (“agrivoltaics,” installing solar panel arrays on farmland, is one of CI’s specialties Renewables).

This year, the company signed contracts with the University of Maryland in Baltimore to install solar panels in two parking garages on campus and with the University of Maryland Medical System to install solar panels in three hospital parking garages across the state.

For Ferguson, these projects align with his own vision of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting clean energy in Maryland while increasing renewable energy job opportunities.

Since the passage of the Climate Solutions Now Act in 2022, “I’ve really been trying to focus on how the energy transition can happen,” he said. “It became a passion. I believe that climate change is an existential threat and finding a way to respond quickly and transform quickly is essential.”

Ferguson said CI Renewables’ executive team is undergoing a generational transition and will be able to learn new responsibilities from the outgoing general counsel, who plans to retire next year.

The company’s leadership team includes another familiar name in Maryland political and political circles – Joshua Feldmark, former director of community sustainability for Howard County government and currently senior vice president of CI Renewables.

An artist’s impression of a proposed solar system on the roof of a parking garage at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Photo CI Renewable energy sources.

In a recent social media post, Feldmark, longtime environmentalist and progressive activist and statesman Del. Jessica Feldmark (D-Howard), welcomed Ferguson to the team.

“I am excited about the next miracle in the sea of ​​engineers,” he wrote.

And while not officially part of the corporate family, former Allegany County Commissioner Jake Shade (right) serves as a strategic joint development partner with CI Renewables and is helping the company pursue business opportunities in Western Maryland.

Like most of the 188 members of the General Assembly, Ferguson sometimes had difficulty balancing his legislative responsibilities with his professional career.

Shortly after his election to the state Senate in 2010, he served for eight years as director of reform initiatives at the Johns Hopkins University School of Education (Hopkins is a frequent haven for current and former elected officials), an activity that ended around the time , when Ferguson took over as Senate president in early 2020 — an event that preceded the pandemic just a few weeks.

Balancing his new responsibilities in the Legislature with the dual public health and economic crises caused by Covid-19, Ferguson became program director at America Achieves, a national nonprofit that promotes economic opportunity. However, working at CI Renewables is a more permanent solution.

Ferguson admits that the process of finding a way to make a living while remaining in the Legislature and ultimately joining a solar energy company took a long time.

“I had a lot of conversations with people to find out what would work,” he said.

Just this year, the Legislature passed a bill called the Brighter Tomorrow Act, which requires state agencies to set standards to encourage more solar investments on rooftops and other properties, and also provides greater tax incentives for solar installations. The projects that will be streamlined under the new law, which will take effect gradually over the next few months, will generally be smaller than those that CI Renewables routinely works on.

Ferguson said he doesn’t anticipate having to step away from most legislative debates on energy and climate legislation because of his new job, even as lawmakers scramble to figure out how to meet goals for sharply reducing carbon emissions and renewable energy. set out in the Climate Solutions Regulation Now the law.

“I really focused on finding places where I could use my skills and make a difference,” he said. “After three weeks, it seems to be a really good fit.”