In a more serious tone, the Dominion project manager says his instinct to take on the challenge now involves managing a global supply chain, complex logistics and changing politics to install giant Siemens Gamesa-made turbines that each are 869 ft at tip height and generate 14.7 MW, as well as large support infrastructure, all in a risky physical environment—project conditions “I’ve always been drawn to,” he says.

 Joining the company in 2011 with a marine engineering degree and energy sector experience, and elevated last July to vice president of offshore wind construction, Humberson steers ahead in a sector pushing to recover from inflation, supply chain gaps and approval politics during the first Trump administration that reversed under President Joe Biden but could reemerge based on erratic campaign comments by now President-elect Donald Trump.

 As a regulated utility, with set project returns and ratepayer charges hard won from regulators, and with key contractors and costs mostly locked in before COVID-19, Dominion has avoided many financial woes facing commercial developers. CVOW “is a credible testament to the capability to build wind farms at large scale,” says Theodore Paradise, an attorney and policy expert at developer CTC Global.

 “Once you get your head wrapped around the scale of the components, which is astounding, you realize that … moving things around the world becomes rather complex,” says Humberson. He gained expertise through building CVOW’s two pilot turbines in 2020 that provided “actual reliability statistics for modeling” generation and have aided regulators in wind permit approvals, he says.

Humberson also oversaw offsite construction in Texas of Charybdis, the 472-ft-long turbine-installing vessel soon to arrive at CVOW. It is the first to meet decades old federal rules allowing only domestic vessels on offshore wind sites, which have required U.S. developers to use a convoluted, costly transfer of mostly foreign-made project components through Canadian ports or barge-assisted installation. Fabrication delays cancelled the vessel’s earlier use by other developers and upped its price to $715 million, but Humberson says these are balanced by the old method’s much larger costs and risks.

Humberson, on right. takes in view of CVOW marshalling site in Portsmouth, Va., in the cab of Belgium-based contractor DEME's giant Orion crane with first crane operator Gary Waumans before the equipment is loaded on a vessel to install foundations at sea for the project’s 176 wind turbines, each 14.7 MW.
Photo courtesy of Dominion Energy

Work is on track, with 78 turbine monopile foundations and four offshore substation piles installed as of CVOW's late October project halt for whale migration. It will restart in spring, fortified now by a $2.6-billion private investor deal last year with Stonepeak for a 50% project stake.

Humberson says the project’s steady progress has  boosted supply chain confidence. South Korean manufacturer unit LS  Greenlink in 2024 announced a $681-million high-voltage subsea cable plant in Chesapeake, Va., first in the U.S., with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) saying it “will showcase the [state] as a leader in offshore wind industry manufacturing.”

Mark D. Mitchell, senior vice  president of all Dominion energy project construction, points to Humberson's "excellent commercial and construction skills and being a problem solver," as well as his workforce development strategy that gives  "talented employees who want to be on the ground floor of something special ... as much exposure as possible to all  facets of project management ... on a fascinating  megaproject."

Humberson notes more potential work in developing remaining Dominion offshore wind lease sites, or in other of its growing energy areas such as small nuclear modular reactors.  “I feel like the industry didn’t think we would be where we are today,” he says.

Observers note the importance of project success.

"Very few power plants are that big, and no other form of generation could be built in two years," says Willett Kemp, professor of electrical engineering and marine policy at the University of Delaware and a nationally known expert on offshore wind power and policy issues. "Virginia needs electricity and there’s only one project ready to go." He says CVOW "would advance the learning rate and supply chain of the offshore wind industry overall."

Related to brewing political impacts in the new administration, Kemp says that while Trump has called for construction jobs, new infrastructure, US energy dominance and a larger global role for local manufacturing, "killing a large, new electricity source that AI depends on goes against all of those. Even delays, especially for a project already permitted and ready to build, would be expensive and damaging to Virginia."

He adds: "Hopefully the president-elect and his advisors will make the right tradeoffs among these conflicting campaign promises."