Our friend and colleague Senior Fellow Dick Corrigan passed away on March 4 after a long struggle with heart failure and non-Hodkins lymphoma. I invite you to see the full official story of Dick's extraordinary life here.
Now for my say:
I first encountered this extraordinarily kind, generous and street-smart energy finance expert across a multi-sided negotiating table as he (representing the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation), a bunch of global commercial bank representatives and I representing a guarantor of the lead bank, tasseled over how best to work restructure the financing of a struggling geothermal power project in Indonesia. In his wonderfully unassuming, patient way, Dick managed to forge a consensus among all these disparate interests on a path forward that had the promise of avoiding substantial losses for not only the US taxpayers but also the banks. I signed up as a member of what I soon realized was the very the very large and far-flung Dick Corrigan Admiration Society by the end of that first meeting, and I won't ever relinquish my membership.
When Dick asked if I would like to join a band of financial advisors supporting the US DOE'S clean energy Loan Guarantee Program during the Obama-Biden Administration jumped at the chance as I was confident that I would continue to learn from him and how I could grow as both a project finance professional and a concerned citizen trying to move the needle on climate change by getting innovative new clean energy technologies through "the valley of death" between demonstration and commercialization. And I will forever owe Dick a huge debt of gratitude for that opportunity.
And of course I will be forever grateful to Dick Corrigan for having accepted my invitation to join me as a Senior Fellow of the NEMW Institute about a year ago.
So, I thank you, Dick, for a great professional and personal friendship run over the past 25 years.
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