It was a curiosity about the manatees and dolphins that swam in the canal near her father’s Florida home that first drew Colleen Peters to the ocean.
Her childhood fascination with marine life became a passion and then a career path, honed through a vocational high school aquaculture program and a bachelor’s degree in marine science at the Maine Maritime Academy that led to a job on scientific research vessels.
Now, at 39, her love has not wavered. But her dream changed and she realized her education would need to change with it.
The University of Rhode Island’s “Blue MBA” program – a dual master’s degree program in business and oceanography – offered the answer, enhancing Peters’ existing science background while also giving her the financial and economic know-how to advance her career in a growing commercial industry.
She moved to Rhode Island to attend the program.
“Having that MBA was really handy because I can now have elevated conversations with my teammates and work out actual business strategy related to equipment and service,” Peters said.
Indeed, the so-called “blue economy” that has swept ashore in Rhode Island requires workers with the skills to merge the science of deep-ocean environments, wind energy, climate change and wildlife with the day-to-day application of business growth and development. And URI’s Blue MBA program, the first and – to organizers’ knowledge – still the only program of its kind in the nation, is key to providing this mix of skills.
The two-year program combines curriculum from the oceanography and business schools, with courses ranging from chemical oceanography and storm surge modeling to financial accounting and global supply chain management.
‘We need more engineers with an extended tool set.’
NEAL FINE, Arctura Inc. CEO
An economic report commissioned by R.I. Commerce Corp. in 2020 put a $5 billion value on the blue economy supersector, which encompasses a broad swath of industries such as marine science, fisheries, information technology, cybersecurity and offshore wind.
URI, long renowned for its Graduate School of Oceanography, is one of the resources that can make Rhode Island a leader in this nascent economy, said report author Bruce Katz.
For now, the Blue MBA program remains small; Peters is among the 23 students who have graduated since it began in 2008. But just as the program can help support the growing blue economic sector, university coordinators hope the buzz around the blue economy can, in turn, provide a tailwind to push the program ahead.
“We certainly have the capacity for more students,” said David Smith, a professor and associate dean in the Graduate School of Oceanography.
Key to the Blue MBA, according to Smith, is connecting the academics to what companies are looking for in new workers. Many employers are still at the startup stage, but as they begin to bring products to market, hiring candidates with expertise in both business and science will be more important than ever.
That’s the case for Arctura Inc., an East Greenwich-based wind energy technology company founded in 2015.
The Blue MBA program was not available when CEO Neal Fine was in college. Instead, he pursued a series of advanced degrees in engineering and oceanography, learning the business side of operations with real-world experience.
Given the choice between having expertise in business or science, he said he preferred the latter. But as he prepares to bring products to market in the coming years, he hopes to expand his staff of five with new hires who have expertise in the economic and technical aspects of the company.
His interest in the Blue MBA program is not just self-serving. He believes the Earth’s future is at stake.
“The scale of climate change is so large a problem, we need more engineers with an extended tool set,” Fine said.
Brian Amaral, a Blue MBA graduate, agreed.
“The top scientists are usually funded by grants or at universities, not working in the for-profit industry in a typical sense,” he said. “Industry folks aren’t trying to push the boundaries of science. They’re trying to provide value to stakeholders. There needs to be a middleman who can kind of speak both languages.”
Amaral is trying to be one of those middlemen. He recently started a new company known as Ocean State Sensing in Newport, which uses sensor technology to measure water temperature at different depths. While the Rhode Island native said he’s always had something of an entrepreneurial spirit – his father owned an electric motor repair company – his decision to strike out on his own was also swayed by the lack of jobs that could use his unique set of skills.
“The industry hasn’t really caught up with how to use [URI’s Blue MBA] degree,” he said.
Peters also found local job opportunities were few and far between after graduating in 2019. She instead found work with a California company, though she works remotely from her West Warwick home.
The nature of the one-of-a-kind program, which draws students from across the country, makes it hard to keep them all in the state once they graduate, said Lisa Lancellotta, coordinator of MBA programs for URI’s College of Business. Lancellotta thinks more internship opportunities with local companies would help keep students in Rhode Island after graduation.
Katz, meanwhile, said retention depended on quality of life – affordability, job opportunities, housing availability. Amaral wanted to see more grant opportunities, particularly for startups.
“There’s always more that can be done,” he said.
Nancy Lavin is a PBN staff writer. Contact her at Lavin@PBN.com.
