The Edgartown select board heard from Richard Andre and Erik Peckar of Vineyard Power, an Island-based nonprofit focused on renewable energy, to discuss an upcoming job fair hosted by Vineyard Wind.
Vineyard Power is partnering with the New Bedford-based Vineyard Wind, which is looking to develop an operations base and maintenance staging area at the Tisbury Marine Terminal in Vineyard Haven to support a proposed offshore wind farm 15 miles south of the Island.
The job fair will be held on April 28 from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Oak Bluffs library and will provide information on up to 50 jobs opportunities at both the offshore and onshore facilities.
“You’ve been a great select board and supportive of us. We just wanted to let the residents of Edgartown know that this is going on,” Mr. Andre said. “Hopefully we’ll be able to announce in the next couple of months that the first offshore wind technicians were hired for Martha’s Vineyard.”
Town administrator James Hagerty compared jobs from Vineyard Wind coming to the Island to the whaling-industry jobs which employed many Edgartown residents years ago.
“I bet you 200 years ago there was a job fair for able-bodied seamen in the whaling industry and we say how that changed the Island,” Mr. Hagerty said. “Hopefully this has the same positive impact for Edgartown and Martha’s Vineyard as a whole.”
