Embracing change for a more sustainable future through the Virgin Islands

For half a century, the Virgin Islands has hosted several iterations of oil refining through a massive facility on the south shore of St. Croix. As a result, residents have weathered a cyclical pattern of prosperity and economic hardship due to the challenges each successive owner of the refinery predictably experienced. Unfortunately, the fallout from the bankruptcy declaration of the refinery’s current owner is only the latest chapter in the facility’s troubled story.

In addition to this economic shock, the USVI, like the rest of the world, is still coping with the health and socioeconomic effects of COVID-19 as well as recovering from Irma and Maria, the two Category 5 hurricanes that devastated the islands in 2017. These unprecedented crises have often seemed impossible to overcome due to their outsized effect on tourism and the small handful of industries that we’ve relied upon for decades. When our largest sources of GDP are crippled in such a short span of time, it leads to immediate job losses and widespread financial instability.

While these circumstances have placed the USVI in a precarious position, they don’t have to define our fate.

For instance, the pandemic has resulted in droves of mainland visitors turning their week-long vacation into a permanent stay because of our island lifestyle and beautiful landscapes. As a result, the USVI saw a massive increase in talent and business relocation in 2020 and an influx of federal funding to bolster economic activity.

Additionally, one of our unique advantages here in the USVI is that we already understand many of the threats our community will face in the years ahead. While history will continue to repeat itself, we can change future outcomes by introducing new, sustainable industries into our economic ecosystem. By investing in emerging technologies today, we can position ourselves at the forefront of innovation and create revenue sources and employment opportunities that we can’t even fully imagine.

Technology-based solutions, agricultural research, and advanced industries all can and should serve as strong long-term investment opportunities for our economy. They are crucial to our success. That is why the University of Virgin Islands Research and Technology Park (RTPark) Corporation has placed a keen focus on these markets.

To date, the RTPark has attracted over 70 tech and knowledge-based companies to the USVI’s growing entrepreneurial base, and our success over the past year in fostering increased investment and relocation to the USVI has led to record breaking financial contributions to the university. Furthermore, we firmly believe that our latest project — a job-creating, mixed-use Tech Village centered around the promotion of agriculture research and sustainable development — represents the type of investment needed to attract the organizations and skilled workforce that are key to forging an economy built upon sustainable development principles.

While the closure of the refinery hurts too many families across St. Croix, the USVI must take full advantage of changing economic, technological and cultural landscapes as we look to emerge from the pandemic. We are at an inflection point in our history, and embracing these new avenues of opportunity means protecting our islands, our history and our culture for future generations of Virgin Islanders.