Greater good is this bank’s priority

LENDING A HAND: Staff members at Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank gather to discuss agency business. From left is Business Development Analyst Graeme Ownjazayeri, CEO and Executive Director Jeffrey Diehl, Chief Operating Officer David Birkins and Senior Business Development Analyst Sydney Usatine.
PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
LENDING A HAND: Staff members at Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank gather to discuss agency business. From left is Business Development Analyst Graeme Ownjazayeri, CEO and Executive Director Jeffrey Diehl, Chief Operating Officer David Birkins and Senior Business Development Analyst Sydney Usatine.
PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

2019 PBN Innovative Companies: Financial Services
Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank


IT TAKES a long-term vision to shake things up to improve results.

Growth at Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank has been the result of institutional change in the way it does business and, more fundamentally, the way it views its role in the community.

With a mission to foster investment in the state’s infrastructure that helps the environment and boosts jobs and the economy via bonds, loans, grants and other means, the quasi-public state entity was doing well. But there was room to make a wider impact, said CEO and Executive Director Jeffrey Diehl.

- Advertisement -

The problem?

“We were just expecting customers to figure out how to use us,” Diehl said.

It’s an approach that changed about four years ago. The 30-year-old bank went from being a program-centric organization to customer-centric, expanded its mandate to include energy and brownfield-remediation projects and changed its name from the Clean Water Finance Agency.

Since its revamping, Rhode Island Infrastructure Bank has increased its local infrastructure investments by 30% compared with its previous 25 years. About two-thirds of that was private-sector capital. Its clean-energy programs have saved more than $75 million in costs.

The bank’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund, for example, got Warren a below-market interest-rate loan for a $20 million upgrade to its wastewater facility, reducing nitrogen discharge into the Warren River. Work is underway. Overall, the bank has made loans of $1.5 billion, including $40.8 million in 2017.

And sometimes, Diehl said, it’s a simple matter of having working capital. The bank’s Stormwater Accelerator Program gets money to municipalities to jump-start green projects, projects that are later reimbursed through grant funding.

“There is more impact” with the more comprehensive, holistic approach, said Diehl. “We are putting people to work in construction and engineering, creating or supporting more jobs and getting these projects done quicker.”

No posts to display