2024 Business Women Awards
WOMAN TO WATCH | GOVERNMENT: Chelsea Siefert
Quonset Development Corp. chief operating officer
CHELSEA SIEFERT’S RESPONSIBILITIES as Quonset Development Corp.’s chief operating officer are quite complex.
Among her roles are managing upgrades and expansions to two piers; overseeing the expansion of Quonset’s Flex Campus, which provides growing businesses access to modern industrial and warehouse spaces; and helping to transform Quonset Point’s shovel-ready initiative into Rhode Island Ready, a statewide initiative that funds rehabilitation of vacant industrial sites and creates an inventory of pre-permitted properties that can support industrial development.
A quasi-state agency, QDC manages the Quonset Business Park in North Kingstown. The 3,207-acre business park includes 229 companies employing more than 14,000 people and annually produces more than $5.9 billion in economic output.
About half of the corporation’s professional staff is female and Siefert is committed to empowering younger women there to assume more leadership roles and additional responsibilities.
“Many women don’t ask for what they want, though I’ve never had a problem speaking up for myself,” said Siefert, who, as a Girl Scout leader, also mentors the next generation of female professionals. “I listen to what [these women] are saying and try to help them speak up for themselves and learn to trust their own voices.”
Siefert also credits her current boss, Quonset Development Corp. Managing Director Steven P. King, for supporting her professional development and promoting her when he recognized her value to the corporation. Siefert says she is most proud of helping to bring the offshore wind cable for Revolution Wind into Rhode Island, which she says will benefit the state’s efforts to achieving its climate goals.
Asserting that public service is still important and can be a satisfying career, Siefert says QDC’s processes are transparent and the corporation can get things done quickly. She also oversees QDC’s Master Plan, which she says will preserve the existing 1,600 jobs at the Port of Davisville and will create 1,100 new, long-term jobs in port-related industries, and an unnamed number of short-term construction jobs.
“We have a $40 million gap in funding to complete the Port Master Plan,” Siefert said. “We’ve had past success in leveraging state bond money to secure federal funds through grant programs and hope to do so again.”
