Every weekday this summer, Ben Washburne ’23 wakes up early and heads to the Charles River in Boston. He and three rowers and a coxswain grab their oars, board their boat and set out for a morning race down the course.

By 11 a.m., he’s back in his home office as his colleagues—most of whom live in California—sign on for the day. Washburne and his team at Intersect Power, a green energy infrastructure company, spend the next several hours strategizing how to most effectively deploy the energy generated by their solar and wind projects. Later in the afternoon, Washburne is back out on the Charles for another run down the river and, twice a week, a weightlifting session.

After dinner, he ties up any loose ends from work. Then, it’s off to bed to rest up before repeating the cycle tomorrow.

It’s a grueling schedule—one that challenges Washburne to toggle between deep focus at work and intense training on the water as he prepares for the 2024 Paralympics in August. But it’s also a balance he honed as a student-athlete at Williams College.

“It was awesome to do a varsity sport with a lot of focus and intensity,” he says, “and then put even more energy towards my academics.”

Channeling competitive energy

Washburne started rowing in the eighth grade, but it wasn’t his first choice in sports.

He was born with a clubfoot in his left leg that required about a dozen surgeries in his early childhood. Washburne spent years in a wheelchair, using crutches, or in a cast and had to relearn how to walk multiple times. Today, his ankle has a limited range of motion, and his left leg is weaker than his right.

By age 10, Washburne was looking to channel his competitive energy. “I tried baseball, soccer, basketball, tennis,” he says. “Any sport that entailed standing up or running, I didn’t take to very quickly.”

That changed the first time he stepped into a boat at the suggestion of his father. Peter Washburne ’87 was introduced to rowing at Williams when the crew coach suggested he try out for the team. Rowing became the center of the elder Washburne’s college experience, and he thought the sport might be a good fit for his son, who now says it “clicked more naturally and immediately than any other sport, in part because I’m sitting the whole time and pushing with my legs.”

He rowed competitively in high school, and his college advisor encouraged him to reach out to coaches. He was surprised to find that several—including Marc Mandel at Williams—were interested in bringing him on.

Washburne says he was a “rough product” his freshman year and had to work hard to reach the physical and technical level of his teammates. At the second practice, Mandel switched Washburne to row on the opposite side of the boat in order to completely reset his technique. Washburne continues to row on that side today, and credits Mandel with much of his development.

“I was a completely different rower [by the time I left Williams], from a skill level, speed level and fitness level,” he says. “I was also more disciplined and had a new level of professionalism in the sport.”

Next-level competition

During Washburne’s junior year, Mandel received an email from the director of the USRowing Para National Team, which was looking for new athletes. While Washburne didn’t use any adaptive equipment at Williams, Mandel encouraged him to see where it might lead.

Washburne signed up for his first development camp that summer but stayed focused on Williams throughout his senior year. A week after graduation, he went to Princeton, N.J., for the selection camp for the 2023 World Championships. After two weeks of intense practice, he was chosen for the team.

At the same time, Washburne landed his job on the strategy and business development team at Intersect. The role is a blend of his physics and economics majors, involving both a deep understanding of the company’s next-generation clean energy technologies and strategizing commercial approaches to decarbonize the sector.

Balancing his career and competition commitments takes a lot of planning. Every week, he maps out his schedule of meetings, deadlines and practices, adjusting his calendar to make it all work.

“It’s cool to be focused on my job, going really hard on that,” he says. “But then I can take a couple hours in the day, clear my mind and focus on something completely different.”

The rigorous schedule paid off last summer when Washburne and his teammates won the silver medal at the 2023 World Rowing Championships in Belgrade, Serbia. The win also secured their place at the 2024 Paralympics in Paris. In August, they’ll face off against many of the same countries and rowers from the 2023 championship.

“We have a good, united team,” Washburne says. “We all have the same goals and are willing to do whatever is called for to achieve them. We’re doing our absolute best to be as optimized as possible. It’s going to be intense with all eyes on us, but it’s going to be the trip of a lifetime to go there and represent the U.S.”

Kim Catley is a freelance writer based in Richmond, Va. She previously worked for the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University and is now a contributor to a number of university magazines.