Opinion: No risk, no New Bedford

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The New Bedford Light has raised the issue of whether the city should invest in a nonprofit organization that was categorized as high risk for reporting requirements. When you look at New Bedford’s history, you realize that risk-taking is in our DNA. It is hard to imagine a riskier business than sending a whaleship out for 4-5 years with unlimited liability on the chance that they might return with the product that made us known around the world.

In 1848, these whaling titans built the Wamsutta Mills, launching us on our second economic chapter and bringing our population from 10,000 to over 120,000. Mind you this was 11 years before the competition for whale oil was discovered in the oil fields of Pennsylvania. Eleven years! You don’t think that investment was a risk?

Personally, I know this. We wouldn’t have revitalized the waterfront historic district if Mayor John Markey hadn’t taken a risk on a young man just out of graduate school. And when we proposed saving the Zeiterion Theatre, there were many doubters. But there were enough people, companies and, yes, the city, to back us. Forty years later it is undergoing a $34 million restoration, supported by the many thousands who have had their lives enriched by its performances.

Titleist golf balls – a risk. Making Joseph Abboud suits in New Bedford. That can’t be done. And every fishing vessel departs New Bedford, as Mayor Jon Mitchell says from personal experience, knowing “in fishing you don’t take for granted the commute to work.”

Every immigrant who has left a familiar home to come to New Bedford to find the American Dream has taken an enormous risk. And these immigrants have built our city.

Risk-taking is baked into New Bedford’s DNA.

As the board chair of the New Bedford Ocean Cluster (NBOC), our mission is to build real, durable opportunity around the port. We do that by focusing on four interlocking industries: commercial fishing, offshore wind, marine technology, and aquaculture. These sectors don’t exist in silos. They overlap, reinforce each other, and succeed together. And, except for fishing, they are all new. Which is a risk.

To build a resilient future for New Bedford, we need to advance ALL these industries — old and new.

That’s where New Bedford Research & Robotics (NBRR) comes in.

The city is wisely investing ARPA funds in its growth. They are turning the Purchase Street building where we all used to get our car windshields repaired into a high-tech hub. NBRR is putting industrial robots, AI, ocean sensors, startup labs, and STEM education under one roof. Not in Boston. Not in Brooklyn. Right here in downtown New Bedford.

NBRR isn’t just dreaming. They’re delivering. Since launching in 2021, they have trained 750+ local students a year, supported more than 20 startups, partnered with a regional aerospace company making parts for NASA, with Ford’s E-Mobility campus in Detroit, and BVN — an Australian company using recycled plastic for building materials. This is not a pipe dream. This is happening.

What’s more, they’ve got skin in the game. Instead of putting a mortgage on the back of a brand-new organization, Executive Director Mark Parsons put his own name on the line and took the risk himself. That’s the kind of commitment this city needs — people who are all in, and unafraid of risk.

Parsons came back to New Bedford after building a nationally known robotics center in Brooklyn. He could’ve stayed in New York or gone to Silicon Valley. But he chose to come home. Because he saw what so many of us see: a place with grit, talent, and a port that can lead the next chapter of the American economy.

NBRR’s work is tailor-made for New Bedford. Their robotics programs support innovation in fishing and aquaculture. Their education and training feed directly into workforce needs in wind, marine tech, and advanced manufacturing. Their STEA³M model — adding Arts, Accessibility, and Applied Learning to traditional STEM — is getting middle school kids to think like inventors and engineers.

This is what it means to take the risks needed to build a future-proof economy. Not just chasing the next big industry, but building the people, skills, and connections to lead it.

And if you think this is just a nice community program, think again. NBRR is landing national contracts and talking to robotics companies from Greece to Croatia about bringing jobs here. To New Bedford.

They’ve attracted millions in support from MassDevelopment, MassTech, and the federal Economic Development Administration, among others — grants handed down from big-name organizations with robust vetting and screening. All with comfort in the risk inherent in betting on a new organization, led by people with a proven track record of success. 

This city has always bet on itself. Sometimes those bets looked crazy — until they weren’t. This is no different. NBRR is the kind of bold, high-upside, high-impact effort New Bedford needs to embrace right now. Because if we wait for someone else to bring the future here, we’ll be waiting forever.

We’ve got the port. We’ve got the people. We’ve got the momentum. What we need is the will to take the leap — again.

Risk built New Bedford. Risk will build its next chapter. Let’s not forget that.

John K. Bullard was a three-term mayor of New Bedford, head of the first federal office of sustainability at NOAA, then served as regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries in the Northeast. He is president of the New Bedford Ocean Cluster and is also a co-founder of The New Bedford Light.

Editor’s note: The New Bedford Light’s newsroom is scrupulously independent. Only the editors decide what to cover and what to publish. Founders, funders and board members have no influence over editorial content.

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