CPN hires ex-Timesman Coleman as media consultant

Local Grassroots group is gearing up for the final push for Cape Wind project

Coming into a pivotal year for the Cape Wind project, Clean Power Now has hired Cape Cod native and journalism veteran Jack Coleman as its media consultant.

"There is no better place to spark an energy revolution in America than in Massachusetts, birthplace of the American Revolution."
- Jack Coleman

In addition to serving as the non-profit's media liaison, Coleman will maintain Clean Power Now's website and assist with research, grant writing and fundraising.

"We are delighted to be able to put Jack's talents and experience to work for our organization," said Executive Director Matt Palmer. "His knowledge of issues involving renewable energy and the Nantucket Sound wind farm will be extremely beneficial to us."

Coleman, who has 15 years of experience as a reporter and editor with newspapers across the region, was one of three dozen people who journeyed to Denmark last May in the second such trip organized by Clean Power Now (the photo was taken during a tour of the wind farm off Nysted in the Baltic Sea).

While in Denmark, he wrote a series of stories for Cape Cod Today, which paid for the trip.

In addition to these and other stories he has written for capecodtoday.com, Coleman has maintained a weblog, or blog, about the Cape Wind project since February 2005, Wind Farmer's Almanac.

"It is gratifying to become part of such a fine organization with a very important mission," Coleman said of joining Clean Power Now. "There is no better place to spark an energy revolution in America than in Massachusetts, birthplace of the American Revolution."

Airman,Tanker Deckhand, Commercial Fisherman, and Journalist

Coleman also served in the 102nd Fighter Interceptor Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base for six years, working as a power production specialist in the civil engineering squadron until he was honorably discharged in 1991.

His background in energy includes a six-month stint as a deckhand on a liquefied natural gas tanker. Twenty years ago - while he still had the back for it - Coleman also toiled on fishing boats out of New Bedford, Harwichport and Boston before returning to college to earn his degree.

"At one point I went from working in a bookstore to working on a fishing boat," he said. A Bourne native, he lives in Plymouth with his wife and their two children.

The couple met at Bridgewater State College, where Coleman served as president of the college's MassPIRG chapter during the spring 1989 semester when BSC students approved its return to campus by a two-thirds' majority. That spring he graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in history.

A formerly angst-ridden Red Sox fan, Coleman enjoys reading, running and collecting postcards of windmills on Cape Cod.

Clean Power Now is a non-profit, volunteer organization that informs and empowers citizens to support viable renewable energy projects and policies and to secure their local and regional benefits. Their immediate focus is to increase citizen support of offshore wind power in Nantucket Sound.