Hard work has always come naturally to Michael Hennessey. At the age of 11, he was working at the family swimming pool supply store.
By the age of 13, he had learned to drive the company truck and work the cash registers.
When his father passed away while Hennessey was a freshman at East Greenwich High School, the young man already had learned what was needed to help carry on the family business, which he did with his sister while earning a host of varsity letters and ultimately getting accepted to Clemson University.
The early lessons of hard work helped him earn a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering. They also helped him survive working two jobs, at a clothing warehouse and a restaurant, after a move to Seattle.
He eventually found work at a transportation-engineering firm. The work gave him experience with public hearings, making presentations to large groups and serving as an expert witness for land developments. The experience led to other work in land development, including with a family-owned business at which he eventually ended up in charge of the company’s real estate portfolio.
He’d found his niche, in land development, and in 2003 moved back to Rhode Island. He found work with the Picerne Real Estate Group. Within two years, he was managing the firm’s residential division and working on 19 land-development sites on everything from land acquisition to final home sales.
In 2008, he launched Providence Realty Investment LLC, a real estate holding company, and Village on the Waterfront LLC. The latter is redeveloping a 27-acre property along the East Providence waterfront. The $250 million development includes 600 residential units and 40,000 square feet of retail space on a former brownfield site.
East Providence Director of Planning Jeanne Boyle credits Hennessey with embracing the city’s vision for a project she says has exceeded its expectations. •
