[Note: This article has been updated with additional information.]

PROVIDENCE – The CEO of the company chosen two months ago to develop the state’s first offshore wind farm has either resigned or been removed from his job, Providence Business News has confirmed.

Chris Brown – who had been the public face of Deepwater Wind as it rolled out its plan to build a 100-turbine wind farm off Rhode Island’s coast (READ MORE) – “is no longer affiliated with Deepwater Wind and is pursuing other opportunities,” Tony Meggs, chairman of Deepwater’s board of directors, said in a statement released to Providence Business News.

Meggs, who is a former executive with the global energy giant BP Plc (the former British Petroleum) did not disclose what led to Brown’s departure.

“The board is currently in the process of selecting a new chief executive officer for the company,” Meggs continued. The directors “hope to conclude that process in the coming months,” he said.

Deepwater’s chief operating officer, Chris Wissemann, will serve as interm CEO until a replacement for Brown is found, Meggs said. Wissemann, a Brown University graduate, founded Winergy Power, one of Deepwater’s predecessor companies.

Meggs added: “As chairman, I will continue to oversee the strategic direction of the company.” The statement was released by Stephen Hourahan, director of public affairs for the Providence advertising agency Duffy & Shanley Inc., which advised Deepwater Wind and hosted Brown’s briefings with reporters in September.

Brown did not return a phone call requesting comment. Deepwater Wind’s official Web site, www.DwWind.com, includes only an e-mail address and a short description of the seven-month-old company.

In a brief telephone interview, Andrew C. Dzykewicz, commissioner of the R.I. Office of Energy Resources, told PBN that Brown has been out of the CEO position “for a couple of weeks.”

Brown was still the company’s chief executive as recently as Nov. 6, when he attended an economic summit organized by Gov. Donald L. Carcieri to brainstorm ways to repair the Ocean State’s ailing economy. (READ MORE)

Dzykewicz, who is also Carcieri’s chief energy adviser, said he did not know why Brown was no longer the company’s CEO, saying “there’s not been a lot of discussion about it.”

Officials at the investment firm D.E. Shaw & Co., one of Deepwater Wind’s backing companies, have stepped in and are leading the search for a new CEO, Dzykewicz said. A call to another of Deepwater’s backers, wind-energy developer First Wind, was not returned.

First Wind announced some executive-suite changes of its own late last month: promoting Kurt Adams, who before joining the Newton, Mass.-based energy developer had served as chairman of the Maine Public Utilities Commission, to executive vice president and chief development officer; hiring Lori Erickson as senior vice president of human resources; and hiring Carol J. Grant, former chief of operations for the City of Providence, as its senior vice president for external affairs.

At a news conference with Brown in September, Carcieri announced that Deepwater had been chosen to build an offshore wind farm at an estimated cost of $1.5 billion. Although no state money was to be spent on the development, state officials said they would support the company as it moved through the regulatory process. (READ MORE)

At the time, the company also committed to basing its corporate manufacturing headquarters at Quonset Point, saying it expected to hire about 800 employees over the next few years.

Just a week after Carcieri’s announcement, Deepwater was chosen by officials in New Jersey to finance and develop that state’s first offshore wind farm. (READ MORE)

In his statement, Meggs emphasized that Deepwater remains committed to developing “utility-scaled offshore windpower in the United States, and in Rhode Island in particular.”

Rhode Island officials are “fully aware of this situation and we are currently in negotiation with them over a joint development agreement for the development of our proposed project in the waters near Rhode Island,” Meggs said. “We are hopeful that in the coming weeks we will be able to announce the signing of that agreement.”

At the time of Deepwater’s selection, state officials had predicted that the agreement between the two companies would be signed by the end of this month.

Brown, a resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., had been an executive at Detroit-based utility DTE Energy before becoming Deepwater’s CEO. Prior to that, he was senior vice president and managing director of Singapore Power International. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware and Villanova University, where he earned a law degree.

Deepwater Wind is a wind-energy firm – backed by energy developer First Wind (formerly UPC Wind) of Newton, Mass., and New York investors D.E. Shaw & Co. LP and Ospraie Management LLC – that has acquired the offshore wind projects of Long Island-based Winergy Power LLC. Founded in the spring of 2008, Deepwater has its headquarters in Ann Arbor, Mich., and offices in Houston, New Jersey and New York. For more information, visit www.DWWind.com.