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Levin left the meeting unsuccessful, even though, Basilica later recalled, “He told us, ‘It’s the only way Rowland is going to send money to the city.’”

5

GETTING TO YES

Buoyed by Levin’s suggestion to jump-start the NLDC, Claire started rounding up people to fill board seats at the agency. She didn’t have trouble finding takers. Many of the key civic leaders she’d been brainstorming with were eager to volunteer. None was more enthused than Steve Percy, a New London real-estate broker who specialized in businesses and marinas. Percy had written the essay calling for leadership in the city that had prompted Claire to take a hands-on role months earlier.

Claire had asked Percy what resources the city had to put against its economic problems. Among other things, Percy suggested a twenty-four-acre peninsula known as the New London Mills property, a prime piece of vacant real estate along the city’s waterfront. Other people Claire polled said the same thing. Claire didn’t know anything about the land in question or why it was vacant. Percy knew the background well.

The New London Mills property had been home to a linoleum manufacturer. Before that, cotton mills and other industries had occupied the land. But all the brick mill buildings had since been demolished, leaving behind nothing but piles of rubble atop land contaminated with all sorts of industrial pollutants.

A few years earlier, a company called Ocean Quest had approached the city and proposed building a $41 million aquatic facility on the site. Ocean Quest promised to build a water camp for kids, complete with a mock submarine and other tourist attractions.

Eager for jobs and tax revenue, the city embraced the project. The state took an active role, too, pledging millions of dollars to rid the site of environmental contaminants as preparation for development. But after all that, the Ocean Quest backers lacked the money to carry out the project. Suddenly, the twenty-four-acre brownfield was available. It wasn’t the prettiest piece of real estate, but it had a grand location—right on the water, at the mouth of the Thames.

Claire, Percy, and the others in the small group emerging to take over the NLDC quickly settled on the idea that one of the agency’s primary objectives should be to try to lure a Fortune 500 company to the site. Something like that could generate some instant momentum. But no one Claire was talking to in New London knew what it would take to attract such a company.

Claire didn’t know the answers either, but she knew someone who did—George Milne Jr., an executive at Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. Pfizer had a massive research facility in nearby Groton, just across the river from New London. As president of central research, Milne ran the Groton facility and ranked among the most respected corporate executives in southeastern Connecticut. He also served on the board of trustees at Connecticut College, which his son attended. And Claire’s husband, Dr. David Burnett, worked under Milne at Pfizer and ran the company’s corporate university. These kinds of connections were among the reasons Levin had recommended Claire to lead the NLDC.

Claire figured she had to get someone like Milne to join the board of directors and help them figure out how to market the New London Mills property to a major corporation. She decided to call him at home and request a face-to-face meeting.

George Milne hadn’t become president of Pfizer’s central research by accident. He had a chemistry degree from Yale and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from MIT. After joining Pfizer in 1970, he spent eleven years doing chemistry and pharmacology research until being appointed director of the company’s department of immunology and infectious diseases. Milne turned out to be a promising corporate leader, too. Intense, driven, and polished, he had all the right attributes for a successful executive in his industry. Pfizer made him a senior vice president in