Bill Martin – Bio – current as of March 23, 2025
Bill Martin is a pioneer in two professions: disability rights advocacy and renewable private power development. In addition, he is a playwright, and produces plays and films.
A native of Potsdam, NY, Bill holds a B.S. in Psychology from Saint Lawrence University in Canton, NY. He then attended North Carolina A&T and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, earning a M. Ed. in Psychology
Athletics were an important part of Bill’s youth and the formation of his world view. As a Northern New York native, he was goal-keeper on several league, international, and New York State championship hockey teams. In track, he anchored Potsdam High School’s unbeaten 880 relay team. Superior coaching and successful teamwork profoundly affected Bill’s approach to problem solving and his business model.
A co-founder of the Stavros Independent Living Center in Amherst, MA, Bill served as an advocate for and with people with mobility impairments, and was a leader in the effort to have curb cuts, ramps, accessible bathrooms, and housing, leading to the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
In 1980 Bill began a career developing independent private power projects. His company, CME Energy LLC led development of one of the world’s first methane and carbon-capture projects in Tunisia, North Africa, and co-developed the first private power projects in South America. He and his development partners developed the 700+MW CCGT project in Fremont Ohio. CME has won such awards as CJ Global’s Best Single Asset in North America in 2014 (the Oregon Clean Energy 900+MW Project), and Grow Rhode Island’s 2017 Best Renewable Projects (the Forbes Street Solar). He provided the seed funding for particulate emissions studies at MIT leading to a large National Science Foundation grant. CME Energy, LLC is currently leading the development of over four gigawatts {over 5 billion USD} of battery energy storage {BESS}projects in New England and the Middle Atlantic states.
Bill co-produces and underwrites plays and movies, winning Best Feature Film in the American Black Film Festival in 2017 with Devin Haqq’s Ambition’s Debt; Jocelyn Ajami’s Queen of the Gypsies won Best Dance in Film at New York’s Lincoln Center Festival; Mustafa Kaymak’s Green won in the category of Best Short Film at the 2019 Sundance Festival; Oliver McGoldrick’s Keeners was presented at the Venice Italy Film Festival in 2024. Bill also produced White 9, a film on the origins of the Independent Living movement, released in August, 2024, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Stavros ILC.
Representative plays Bill supported include: Nilaja Sun’s 2007 Obie-Award-winning No Child…; Sarah Ruhl’s award winning Passion Play (EPIC Theatre Ensemble, NYC, 2010); Mona Mansour’s Vagrant Trilogy (MOSAIC Theatre, Washington, DC, 2017); Jim Wallert’s 2018 Winning Side in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institute; DRUID Theatre’s Richard III (Lincoln Center 2019); Einat Weizman and Dareen Tatour’s I, Dareen, T (USA Premiere, 2022); and the 2023 film version of Heather Raffo’s 9 Parts of Desire
Plays Bill has written and had staged include: The Alchemist of Jerusalem, produced by the MOSAIC Theatre Company at the Washington, DC Kennedy Center’s 2018 Page to Stage Festival; Jimmy Crow Plays Golf One Day, performed at the LARK Theatre in New York City, 2018; The Investor, produced off-Broadway by the EPIC Theatre Ensemble, March, 2021; El Jefe, featured at the Colorado New Play Festival, June, 2022, as well as Martin X, performed in New York’s SIGNATURE Theatre, March, 2023. Bill’s novel, What Bears Dream, is to be published in 2026. In December of 2023, Bill was honored, along with the actor Jessica Hecht, with the En Garde Arts Change Agent Award. His play, The TURTLE STORY is to be produced by Engard Arts Off-Broadway in the fall of 2025.
Bill has served on a number of boards, currently including the St. Lawrence University Hockey Alumni Association and the Colorado New Play Festival in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and is a Senior Advisor to TALVINE Partners infrastructure fund. In addition, he supports DRUID Theatre’s Playwright Development Programme, FUEL, in Galway, Ireland and Mountain Warriors Sled Hockey in Canton NY.