First Wind Expands Scholarship Program

As many as 10 scholarships will be granted to qualified students. In addition, First Wind will provide one renewable scholarship of $5,000 for up to four years to the most qualified student.

“We are pleased to expand our successful First Wind Scholars program to our project sites throughout the Northeast, West and Hawaii,” said Carol Grant, Senior Vice President of External Affairs at First Wind. “Today’s youth are tomorrow’s leaders, and we hope that this program will support young people who show interest in and the capacity to contribute to the fields of environment, energy and science.”

The First Wind Scholars program will be open to high school seniors in communities served by one of First Wind’s area locations (outlined below). In order to be eligible for the scholarship, students will need a GPA of 3.0 or higher and plan to enroll in full-time undergraduate study majoring in earth and/or environmental sciences, technology or engineering.

Applications are open and available online as of today with all submissions due by May 1, 2010. Judging will be based on a number of factors, including academic performance, work experience, school and community activities and a 300-word essay. The program and selection of recipients is administered by Scholarship Management Services, a leading designer and manager of scholarship and tuition reimbursement programs for corporations and others. The names of the scholarship recipients will be announced in late May 2010.

Earlier this year, Kelsey Mitchell, a senior at Millard High School in Fillmore, Utah, was the first recipient of a First Wind Scholars award. Ms. Mitchell will receive a $3,000 scholarship toward tuition at Southern Utah University, where she will begin her studies in Forensic Science this fall. The scholarship program is now being expanded to all of First Wind’s project areas.

Students residing near the following First Wind projects (or planned projects) will be eligible to apply for the scholarship:

First Wind is an independent wind power company exclusively focused on the development, financing, construction, ownership and operation of utility-scale wind farm projects in the United States.

First Wind took another step toward its pending IPO Monday, filing an amendment with the Securities and Exchange Commission that names its IPO underwriters and reports the company’s earnings through the end of 2009.

First Wind, which develops wind farms, named Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank Securities, Goldman Sachs & Co. and Morgan Stanley as its lead underwriters. The new regulatory filing reports the company had $28.8 million and $47.1 million in revenue in 2008 and 2009, respectively.

First Wind also reported it generated 656,365 megawatt hours of electricity in 2009, nearly triple the 239,940 it generated in 2007.

Based in Boston, First Wind has wind turbines projects in the Northeast, the West and in Hawaii, with the capacity to generate up to 504 megawatts of power.