ANIMATING MARKETS FOR DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

MESSAGING CHANGE AND ENGAGING COMMUNITIES

Barretto Bay Strategies LLC

Barretto Bay Strategies is an urban solutions consulting firm that provides strategic advising to public agencies, community development organizations, and start-ups in the areas of renewable energy and clean transportation; urban manufacturing & distribution; and neighborhood revitalization. The firm specializes in projects positioned at the interface of public policy and market development in these spaces.

Barretto Bay’s recent clients have included a global automaker seeking to develop and deploy a zero-emission car share program in dense East Coast metros, a national developer of affordable housing pursuing a strategy of industrial job creation in a new mixed-use development, the owner of a 120 acre former shipyard in search of a repurposing strategy for a location that once employed over 50,000 workers, and an economic development organization looking to procurement localization as an approach to address poverty in an historically underserved area. Barretto Bay has advised three NYS Brownfield Opportunity Area studies as well as six NYS Energy Research and Development Authority projects

Consultant Bios

PAUL LIPSON, PRINCIPAL

KAVITA PAWRIA-SANCHEZ, SENIOR CONSULTANT

JOSH KELLER, ASSOCIATE CONSULTANT

Paul Lipson served for seven years as Chief of Staff to Congressman Jose E. Serrano (NY-16), an 11-term Democrat and senior appropriator from The Bronx, NY. In 2009, Lipson served as principal author of The American Electric Vehicle Manufacturing Act (HR 4399), a bill introduced with bi-partisan support aimed at scaling up the domestic electric truck industry and helping to address air quality deficits incurred by medium duty fleets based in places like the South Bronx.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Lipson founded and led The Point Community Development Corporation, a pioneering CDC based in the Hunts Point section of The Bronx and active in the sustainability sector. The organization launched the South Bronx Greenway, initiated the revitalization of 8 acres of scatter-site brownfields, redeveloped two significant industrial parcels, launched a creative sector business incubator in the historic American Banknote Building, and led local community consensus-building around land use and waterfront issues in the Hunts Point peninsula.

Most recently, Mr. Lipson led the PennDesign-OLIN team’s consensus-building and engagement process for its successful Rebuild By Design application to address coastal vulnerabilities in and around the Hunts Point Food Distribution Center. In this role, Mr. Lipson’s firm worked intensively with organized labor locals, food wholesalers, small businesspeople, community advocates, and the non-profit community to elicit local solutions to longstanding resiliency challenges in Hunts Point.

Kavita Pawria-Sanchez is a senior consultant with Barretto Bay Strategies and has over two decades of experience in government, legal and non-profit spheres, where she has bridged communities with innovative programs and policies. Passionate about creating principled yet practical results, she is trained as a civil rights attorney, community organizer and government executive and holds expertise on a broad range of community issues.

Prior to consulting, Kavita worked in city government under Mayors Bloomberg and De Blasio, most recently as an Assistant Commissioner and General Counsel at the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, where she designed and implemented $75M in programs, successfully advocated for legislation and interfaced with marginalized communities across NYC. In recent years, Kavita has founded a community organization in the Bronx, supported various BBS initiatives and led several public education campaigns for the City, including NYC Census 2020 – the largest city-funded community organizing program in NYC history. She holds a B.S. in Public Policy from Cornell University and a J.D. from the City University of New York School of Law.

Josh Keller is the former Executive Director of the Southwest Brooklyn Industrial Development Corporation, a local economic development agency serving the over 2,000 industrial businesses of Sunset Park, Red Hook and Gowanus. He worked at SBIDC for nearly a decade helping companies access complex tax incentive and financing programs. He was deeply involved in various relocation and retention projects aimed at increasing jobs and investment in the local economy. He also started a privately funded workforce development program which places hundreds of residents into industrial jobs each year.

In addition to his role at SBIDC, Josh currently works as a consultant to various industrial concerns and has also consulted several nonprofit organizations on fundraising strategy, financial management and strategic planning. Josh earned an MPA from NYU's Wagner School of public service and a BA, in economics, from Queens College. He is currently pursuing a second masters in economics at NYU's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. His research work includes a study of the risk and return of Industrial Development Bonds.

“The Bronx is Breathing” Selected As Grand Prize Awardee in $85 Million New York Clean Transportation Prize Competition

-Project to bring community revitalization, economic development, and clean transportation to the Hunts Point community in the Bronx

Bronx, NY– The New York State Energy and Research Development Authority (NYSERDA), in partnership with the New York State Department of Public Service (NYSDPS) and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC), has announced the selection of The Bronx is Breathing: Reimagining a Cleaner Hunts Point, a project conceptualized by Urban Health Plan, the Greater Hunts Point Economic Development Corporation and The Point Community Development Corporation, for a $10 million grand prize to advance plans to bring clean transportation solutions to New York State’s busiest trucking hub. A collaboration with Volvo Group North America, along with Shell Recharge Solutions and deployment partners City Harvest and the Drivers Cooperative, the project will reduce air pollution, advance freight electrification, and support clean mobility in one of New York’s most underserved communities.