New Wave Media

New Jersey based Ocean Power Technologies, Inc. (OPT) said it has established a presence in Houston to more effectively support the company’s oil and gas business development activities.

 

The company’s daily business development activities in Houston will be managed by OPT’s new Director of Global Applications, David Marchetti, who work with customers to understand their challenges and develop unique solutions which integrate the OPT PowerBuoy to support customer subsea remote offshore operations from concept through deployment and beyond.

 

OPT’s PB3 PowerBuoy uses ocean waves to provide clean, reliable and persistent electric power and real-time communications for remote offshore applications.

 

OPT said its Houston presence is intended to foster new opportunities such as commercial contracts and strategic partnerships by establishing strong relationships throughout the sales cycle with solution evaluators, implementers and end users.

 

“Our expansion to Houston is a direct reflection of the interest level we’re seeing in the oil and gas industry, as well as in other industries targeted for our products and services,” stated George H. Kirby, President and Chief Executive Officer of OPT.  “Having a presence in Houston’s vibrant oil and gas hub is a critical part of serving prospective U.S. and international customers.”

 

Marchetti brings to the role 28 years’ experience in the oil and gas industry, having held various positions with increasing levels of responsibility spanning from business development, engineering and product development, manufacturing and operations, to aftermarket. According to OPT, Marchetti has a proven track record and demonstrated expertise in oil and gas subsea production systems, remotely operated vehicle systems and general machine design.

 

“David’s presence in Houston will support business development activities by directly interacting with customers to identify opportunities, build business cases and to liaise with our New Jersey-based engineering team to develop and implement robust solutions,” Kirby said, adding “We continue to evaluate new geographies where additional presence might position us for accelerated growth.”