From Spark to Stage
Turning an Idea into a Conversation on Energy
This is the story of how a spark of an idea turned into an event worth remembering.
It began on a late November road trip in 2023. Riding in the car with my husband, I suggested we listen to a podcast series I had just discovered: The Big Dig.
Having lived in Somerville, Massachusetts from 1998 to 2006, I had experienced the Big Dig first-hand. At the time, it was a constant source of stress, strain, and complaint — seemingly endless construction with no clear end in sight. Yet today, it’s largely recognized as a transformative success. I was eager to revisit that story: not just for nostalgia’s sake, but because it felt strikingly analogous to the clean energy transition we’re working to deliver.
The connection came quickly. At the close of the very first episode, producer and host Ian Coss reflected:
“My interest in this whole story springs from a feeling, a hope, really, that our nation is on the precipice of a new era of infrastructure. And I'm not just thinking about roads and bridges here. I'm thinking about wind turbines, solar farms, transmission lines, battery plants, about making our buildings more efficient and our coastlines more resilient to storms and flooding. If you look at any optimistic scenario for surviving climate change, it involves building stuff on a totally unprecedented scale.”
I practically shouted in the car: “Ohmigosh, that’s it! He’s telling our story. This is what everyone in America needs to hear. We need him to talk to our people.”
And so began the journey from spark to spotlight.
With my colleague Adam, who leads Strategic Communications at Advanced Energy United, we set out to turn that car-ride epiphany into a real event. The first hurdle: connect with Ian Coss and invite him into conversation. From there, we broadened the dialogue, curating a panel that brought together leading voices from Massachusetts and beyond:
Rebecca Tepper, Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
Maria Robinson, former Director, Grid Deployment Office, U.S. Department of Energy
Joe Curtatone, President, Alliance for Climate Transition and former Mayor of Somerville
Jeremy McDiarmid, Managing Director and General Counsel, Advanced Energy United
What began as a passing thought became a powerful discussion on stage.
At the heart of the event was one simple but urgent truth: how we tell the story matters just as much as how we build the project. Without strong storytelling, even the most transformative infrastructure can face impenetrable skepticism. The panelists underscored that while the energy industry is already executing at scale, success will ultimately hinge on broadening community engagement and winning public trust.
For me, the lesson was clear: we cannot succeed at transforming our energy system unless we succeed at winning hearts and minds.
Read the original event summary, Applying Lessons Learned From the Big Dig in Boston to the Clean Energy Transition, on Advanced Energy United’s blog. The post includes an embedded highlight reel. You can access the full event recording here.
Listen to the podcast that inspired it all, The Big Dig. The nine-episode series was produced by GBH News in partnership with PRX and hosted by Ian Coss.
