You are here: Home / Archives for NESEA Members

From Ghastly to Green – a foreclosure purchase story (or how I spent my summer vacation)

August 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

Hi all,

This blog post was written by Shannon Tate of Beyond Green Construction (a NESEA member of course) about a deep energy retrofit my family and I are undertaking. It originally appeared on Beyond Green’ blog at http://beyondgreen.biz/2012/07/from-ghastly-to-green-a-foreclosure-purchase-story-2/.  I plan to post additional updates as they are available . . . it’s clearly still a work in progress. I’m sure the practitioners among you will be shocked . . . shocked to hear that the schedule has slipped further since the post was first written. Hoping for a September 20th move-in date at this point – fingers crossed!

 

 

Well hello and welcome to our very first blog post!  My name is Shannon Tate,
a sustainable design and green building enthusiast and newby here at Beyond Green Construction.  (That’s me over there on the left.)  Here at BGC we are passionate about doing our part to make the world a better place and healing this planet!…we feel the best way to do this is through education.  We think the best form of education that we could share would be to give you all the nitty gritty, good, bad, ugly details of our present Deep energy Retrofit projects.  It’s not easy work for us or the homeowners, but it is incredibly rewarding and life changing in the end.  Our approach is to be 100% transparent with you.  No holding back, no sugar coating.  Our blog will be presenting the real deal.  It’s especially exciting for us because we are starting our blog love with a really HUGE project that we just began work on in Deerfield.  So here we go.  Happy reading.

Meet the Marrapese family…Jennifer, Bill, their two little girls and sweet pup.  Jennifer is the Executive Director of NESEA, the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association and Bill is a nurse in Brattleboro, VT.

(This photo was taken outside their current rental in Deerfield, where they anxiously await the completion of their new home.)

Jennifer and Bill, who moved here a year ago with their family, recently purchased a 1977 ranch in foreclosure just a few blocks from their rental property in Deerfield.  The house is a fixer upper…to put it lightly.

“Sean and the inspector were with us and everyone suspected that there was going to be major work to be done”, says Bill.

“That being said…we knew it was in rough shape but it’s turned out to be in worse shape then we thought” says Jennifer.

The homes most substantial problem stems from the fact that it’s built on a high water table and “it seems that the slab was never insulated against the water coming up from underneath.  The slab was acting like a straw to suck the water up into the foundation and the walls”, says Bill.

As the reader you may be asking yourself, “why the heck didn’t they find all this out before they bought the place?”  The answer is, when purchasing a property in foreclosure, there are many things you can’t do during a home inspection.  You can’t lift up carpets, you can’t do anything that is invasive, where you’re peeling anything open or examining something from within…you can only look at the surface and take it as your eyes perceive it.  So it wasn’t until after the purchase went through that the damage could truly be assessed.  Carpets ripped up, beams exposed, and mold in clear view, everywhere.  Mold was found in the insulation, roofing, walls, carpet, tack strips, everywhere.  ”I think the homeowners believed at the time of purchase that they could do a lot of the demo work themselves, but once they started removing carpet, they realized how dangerous that would be,” says Jeffords.

A secondary problem of the home is that it has a sunroom addition on the back which was done extremely poorly.  Bill calling it a “Ham and egg job….or I’ll give you a pizza, you give me an addition.”  That explains it pretty perfectly.  After the purchase went through, the BGC team came in and realized that adding to the already lengthy list of problems, the floor in the addition was about to cave in as well. 

Even with all of its problems, this home does have its charms.  The homeowners had their hearts set on this neighborhood and this particular street when their search began.  They were serendipitously invited to a barbecue on an earlier visit, which happened to be on the very street they purchased on.  ”We met a lot of people on the street who we ended up clicking with” says Jennifer.  ”It’s a dead end street, it’s sunny so immediately we both looked at each other and said this is the street we want to live on.  So when the house came up in foreclosure, we thought it was the perfect opportunity, especially since we knew we wanted to do energy work and we didn’t want to pay extra for a house that we were going to have to rip up anyway.”  There were also many other plus’s on Jennifer and Bill’s list.  ”We have some land, it’s perfectly suited for solar and we paid probably $45K less than if we had purchased it from an owner, ” Bill says of the house.  Jennifer adds “and there’s farmland behind the property and it’s protected”  ”It’s still a little bit of a scary investment”, she admits.

The couple says that although they wouldn’t call themselves “sustainability experts”, that for a very long time, sustainability has been a part of their daily practice and a part of their values.  ”We’re really excited to take this project as an opportunity to explore and live into that”, says Jennifer.

Even with all of the lists of “green building experts” at her disposal through NESEA, Jennifer says that they really “didn’t do a lot of interviews for the job” and that she chose the BGC team “largely on reputation within the community” and that Jeffords was very familiar with how to go about finding monetary incentives through the energy companies, theirs being Western Mass Electric…which the couple will be receiving $19K in incentive money from.  (If you’re interested in looking into incentives for your green project, go to www.masssave.com to learn more.)

The couple closed on the house in April with hopes to acquire a building permit quickly and start work with the BGC team.  But, like many projects, things didn’t move along as quickly as hoped.  The couple, along with the BGC team lost 6 weeks of time after the building inspector thought they needed to bring the project plans to the conservation committee for additional approval.  He came to this conclusion because the home has an intermittent stream on the property and they needed to be sure wasn’t a part of the wetlands.  They eventually were given a negative determination and could move forward without any additional approvals, but that was 6 weeks lost.  The Marrapese’s found this difficult as they were already paying the mortgage and had to add on two additional months in their rental…not to mention that Jeffords had his team ready to go.  It was a set back, but they put that time to good use, making sure all their plans were in place and were sure of exactly how they would proceed with the project.

The plans are a pretty huge undertaking in and of themselves.  After determining how extensive the moisture problems were and that the source was the foundation, BGC’s engineer, Chris Vreeland from Precision Decisions Inc. devised a plan to actually lift the house off of the foundation with a series of jacks that will be attached to the foundation wall and a piece of “4x”6 angle iron bolted into each and every wall stud.  The house will be lifted 8 inches off the slab and then a moisture and thermal barrier will be created with high-density foam topped with 4 inches of concrete that has radiant floor tubing imbedded into it.  This will stop the mold and moisture problems at their source, so that when they re-insulate the house and tighten it all up, the indoor air quality will be healthy for the family.  Also included in the plans are the installation of a Solar Thermal System with electric back-up and a wood stove for an alternative heat source on the off chance that they would lose electricity because of a storm or power outage.

As you can imagine, this is not a cheap project.  We have a budget to work with of $100 per square foot (brand new builds on average are $150 + per square foot) and with the home at nearly two thousand square-feet, we’re nearing $200K.  That being said the couple says they’re just “makin’ it happen”, doing what they have to do with  their own saved money, a line of credit, borrowing from family…they are determined to make it happen within their budget.

Their budget is being helped greatly with the resource of the Eco Building Bargains in Springfield, where they bought used solid oak kitchen cabinets and laminate countertops for only $1400.  They plan on getting their bathroom fixtures from there as well and found a great deal on flooring through Hampton Carpet.

In the end the Marrapese’s will have a super energy efficient, healthy house for their family.

With the August 31st move in date quickly approaching the BGC team needs to work smart and fast.  We’ll give you more of the details next week!  Until then, have a good one.

 

 

 

Filed Under: deep energy retrofit, NESEA Members Tagged With: , , ,

Building Energy Masters Series Update: Summer 2012

July 11, 2012 By Leave a Comment

This spring the first cohort of Building Energy Masters Series students completed the six-week Passive House training, taught by Paul Eldrenkamp and Mike Duclos.  They got a phone call from the instructors on the first day of the class and received a packet with the text book and other NESEA-related materials, then worked their way through a series of videos, reading assignments, quizzes, and homework.  Here’s what they said about the training:

  • “The course load averaged 5 hours per week.  There was a lot of variability in my schedule so I was glad the format was so flexible.”
  • “I learned a ton, but also have new-found respect for how much there is to know to do Passive House the right way.  I can definitely apply what I learned to my job.”
  • “Great instructors – I felt lucky to have their attention for such a sustained period.”
  • Biggest opportunity for improvement: “…deeper and more frequent interaction between the students and the instructors.”

So – a pretty good start, we think.  This summer we’re working on integrating a discussion wall into the course page to promote more interaction within the course, and we’re also going to roll out progress trackers so the instructors can see who’s engaged and who’s not.

A revised and improved version of the Passive House Training will be available this fall, along with two new Building Energy Masters Series Offerings:

  1. Zero Net Energy Homes with Marc Rosenbaum.
  2. Innovation Workshop: Developing & Implementing Nature-Inspired Ideas with Randall Anway.

In parallel, we’re developing a certificate program to for the Building Energy Masters Series – our goal is to build a sustainable program that facilitates the dissemination of deep expertise.  We’ll continue to keep the community informed, and always welcome volunteers or feedback.   If this sounds interesting for any reason, let Mary or Travis know how you’d like to get involved.

Filed Under: Events, NESEA Members, Sustainable Building, Whole Systems Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Building an Infrastructure for Collaboration – How are we doing?

June 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

How do NESEA members propose new programs they’d like to be involved in launching?
How does NESEA engage members in projects that align both with their passions and their skill sets?
How do we build the capacity of our members to be effective leaders and collaborators for the projects we take on?
Who decides which NESEA programs get launched and which ones don’t?
How do we reinvent legacy programs so that they align with NESEA’s mission and its brand?
What’s the mechanism for welcoming new members into our community?

These are just a few of the questions we’re attempting to answer in our “Infrastructure for Collaboration” (IFC) working group. The IFC group launched in May 2012, after NESEA held two charrettes during which the members present requested that we develop better processes for engaging current and new members and for deciding which programs and initiatives to undertake.

The underlying premise of these two charrettes was that NESEA is at its best when its programs are primarily member-driven and staff supported. (The BuildingEnergy Planning Committee’s process, although by no means perfect, is the best current example of this.) Thus, the IFC group has been attempting to take what’s good about the BE planning process and adapt it for re-use in other areas.

We’ve made some progress, and IFC group chair Jamie Wolf and I thought it would be a great time to bring you all up to date.

What we’ve done so far

So far, the IFC group has developed a workgroup template. This template is intended to walk a NESEA member, step-by-step, through the process of proposing a new program/initiative. In the template, the member is asked to:

  • Give a brief description of the project/program/initiative
  • Articulate the purpose of the program (and how it fits in with NESEA’s mission)
  • Specify the objectives of the program
  • Articulate the process by which the group/program will accomplish these objectives
  • Propose a timeline for the program
  • Specify what type of support is needed to launch the program (including staffing resources, equipment, money, etc.) and what plans are in place to secure that support
  • Address how the group will communicate, both internally and externally
  • Specify who will lead the group and who will be members (or how members will be selected, what their roles will be and how they will be held accountable
  • Articulate what the end product will be, if any, from the project/program (how will success be measured)

Once this template is completed, the appropriate NESEA staff representative (typically me in my role as executive director) completes a companion template to provide feedback/a reality check on the proposal. In this template, staff answers questions about:

  • Whether we support the proposed initiative
  • Whether we believe the project can be accomplished with the resources projected, and what other resources might be available
  • Whether/how the project will likely fit in with other, potentially competing priorities, and the conditions that must be met in order for staff to support the project optimally
  • Who on staff will be the primary staff person on the project
  • What authority the group will have to act on its own

We’ve also developed a member survey that will help us start to catalog our members’ skill sets and their interests, so we can do a better job of filling the gaps in various NESEA projects and committees.

What we’re learning

Developing these templates felt a bit abstract to many of us in the IFC group. So we decided to try them out – first to apply the process to the Communities of Practice that Robert Leaver is heading up, and then to our own work within the IFC group.

What we’re learning is that it takes discipline to remember to follow the process. As a staff person who focuses primarily on member support, my inclination is often to jump into projects when they are proposed – and especially when they are proposed by members I have worked with, and those I know have the horsepower and the follow through to get the projects done. But I’m recognizing that this process may have value in encouraging those who are new to the community or inclined to be less vocal to propose ideas that otherwise might never reach the surface.

We’re also learning that it’s hard to foresee every possible variable that we should ask for in a proposal. We want the bar to be set sufficiently high so that we’re not getting new requests for new, big, resource-intensive programs every day. But we don’t want to set the bar so high that somebody with a fantastic idea can’t figure out how to get it to us, or gives up trying.

What’s next?

We’ll continue to experiment with these templates just a bit longer, and try to vet them sufficiently so they’re ready for you to use. We’ll keep you updated on our progress!

– Jennifer Marrapese, Executive Director, NESEA, and Jamie Wolf, IFC group chair

Filed Under: Communications, NESEA, NESEA Members Tagged With: , , , , ,

Newsflash: This whole-systems-thinking-stuff is hard!

June 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the hallmarks of NESEA as an organization is that we embrace, or at least purport to embrace, whole systems thinking. We bill ourselves as “the Northeast’s leading member organization of professionals working in sustainable energy, whole systems thinking, and clean technology.”  In fact, NESEA’s whole systems thinking brand was part of what attracted me to the organization when I first accepted my position. I was drawn to the fact that nobody here was espousing simple, band-aid solutions to the complex issues associated with the large scale behavior change necessary to create a more sustainable built environment.

Well, for the past almost three months, I’ve been working on a deep energy retrofit of a house my husband and I just purchased. After three months of iterative planning, modeling, permit-seeking and neighbor stewarding, we’ve scarcely broken ground. Here’s what I’m learning, through the process, about whole systems thinking:

  • It’s hard;
  • It’s time consuming; and
  • Often it results in receiving differing, and even conflicting opinions that even an informed homeowner might have trouble sifting through.

This may seem obvious to those of you who do this work every day. But to me it’s a revelation that gives me even greater respect for the work that you all do, and for the clients for whom you do it.

I don’t think our experience is atypical. Like many of your clients, we face a number of constraints, including:  a tight budget with lofty energy savings goals; and a tight timeframe. Bottom line – We can’t afford to keep paying both a rent and a mortgage for much longer!

So, we’ve had to sacrifice the process in favor of the result in some instances. For example, we learned fairly early in the process that we couldn’t operate by consensus within our team and still meet our timeframes. And, closely related, we found that we needed to be crystal clear about each person’s role and responsibility within the team to ensure that we didn’t have more than one person working on the same thing at the same time. Ultimately, we had to decide who was in charge. (In our case, we went with our contractor, who had completed more DERs, and had worked more closely with the local utility on its incentive programs, than anybody else on our team.) We took this step in part, to contain costs, and in part, to keep the project on track with the timelines we need to meet.

Some of these decisions have been particularly challenging. As Executive Director of NESEA, it’s important for me to preserve my relationships with NESEA members. The stakes feel particularly high when I’m dealing with NESEA members as a client, but also trying to enhance my professional relationship with them through the process.

In any case, we’re still in the thick of the project, and many NESEA experts have told me to expect the stress levels to get worse before they get better. But I hope to report, within a few short months, that it’s all been worthwhile, and that we’ve moved into our new, very comfortable, very energy efficient home!

Filed Under: NESEA Members, Whole Systems

Invitation to join NESEA’s Communities of Practice

June 14, 2012 By Leave a Comment

NESEA is piloting communities of practice (COP) for its members in which people can learn and problem solve together about a topic or practice they are passionate about. COPs are encouraged to meet online as well as in person.

A COP “is a group of people who share a craft and/or a profession. It can unfold naturally because of the members’ common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created with a specific goal of gaining defined knowledge. It is through the process of sharing information and experience with the group that members learn from each other, and have the opportunity to develop themselves personally and professionally.[1]”

COPs create an experience of mutual learning and collaboration where every participant is both teacher and learner. In an effective COP representatives of a whole system are present to get the work done.   

At the close of BE12, 5 COPs formed.  Of the 5, we will conduct pilots with the topics of whole systems and next economy. We will begin online the week of July 18, 2012 in BaseCamp. John Abrams is developing the first next economy post to get the conversation going in BaseCamp. I am asking Jamie to do something similar for whole systems.

Save the date #1: To really accelerate COP participation, there will be an in-person workshop for NESEA members only. We will convene both the whole systems and next economy groups in the Pawtucket studio of New Commons on July 19th, 11 am to 2:30 pm. The agenda will feature both topical conversations on our two topics as well as collaborative conversation across the two topics. You can either bring a lunch or we will figure out how to make sandwiches available for people to buy — lunch and registration details will follow.

Save the date #2: The NESEA Annual Meeting will be held in September 15, 2012 in Portland Maine. On either 9/14 or 9/15 we will hold a second COP workshop.  Stay tune for the final date.

Before July 19th, Robert Leaver will develop and post a draft “COP Guide” based on the contributions posted so far, online, by the COP work group. It will define what a COP is; describe the facilitator’s role and so on. I will also revise “the compact” of purposes and roles between members and staff for the COP work group.

We have to begin working together online in BaseCamp as it will take some time to get BuddyPress designed and ready for our use. The collaborative infrastructure group will be organizing with staff and members a work group to work on the design and use of BuddyPress.

I look forward to seeing you on the 19th of July –11 am to 2:30 pm in the New Commons studio in Pawtucket.

Robert Leaver
New Commons

(Robert Leaver served as the BE12 Conference Chair and the BE11 Vice Chair)

[1] Communities of Practice as defined in Wikipedia based on the concept of Etienne Wegner.

Filed Under: Communications, Emerging Professionals, NESEA, NESEA Members, Whole Systems Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Refurbished Membership Levels – May 2012

April 16, 2012 By Leave a Comment

(A follow up/reiteration of our recent 4/12/12 email to the membership):

NESEA has some changes afoot –

  • The first is our new website, to be launched in May.
    The new website, and new database to match, will help improve the way in which members can communicate and connect with one another.
  • Second, after gathering member survey feedback and some serious consideration, we are refurbishing our membership levels, which will be launched with the website in May.

Here is what you can expect:

Individual Levels:
Student / Retiree – $25
Individual / Emerging Professional – $55
ASES / NESEA Individual – $94
Lifetime Individual – $1500

Business Levels (suggested by number of employees):
Small Business / Entrepreneur (1-10) – $250
Local Leader (11-25) – $500
Industry Leader (26+) – $1000

You may notice the new levels are more or less equivalent to our current structure. So, why the change?

  • We needed to simplify.
    Before we had six individual levels of membership and five business levels. Now we offer a total of seven levels. We think this is much more straightforward. It’s also easier for us to track, which means we can spend less time on administration, and more time serving you!
  • We serve a diverse community of members who range in age, career phase, discipline and business size. We needed a membership structure to match.
    Now, new and renewing members can identify their niche more easily and not just based on the quantitative benefits associated with each level. We are asking members to identify themselves in each member level, rather than to choose only based on the price, or the discounts. According to our recent member surveys, the discounts, while definitely a perk, are not really why you join NESEA. (The discounts aren’t going away, though, never fear!)
  • We want to reflect our continued clarity of vision on who our members are and what matters to you.
    We are working hard to continue to improve and deliver on what you have said matters most to you – the peer to peer learning, the community, and the opportunities to connect professionally. De-emphasizing the discounts as reasons to join, coupled with a membership structure that more clearly reflects different career phases, business sizes, and foci, we will be better positioned to do so.

Because most of the current levels have a direct equivalent, your current level of membership should translate seamlessly into our new database. No action is required on your part.

For example, if you are a current Basic $55 Member, you will translate to Individual/Emerging Professional $55 level membership in the new structure. With the exception of the levels we are no longer offering (explained below), very little will noticeably change for you, but we think the semantics are important.

So, where is the Sustainable Green Pages level?

  • We are retiring it as a membership level.
    The Sustainable Green Pages directory listing will be available to anyone that would like to purchase it (for $100), but those that purchase the listing only will not be considered NESEA members (and so will also not receive the Northeast Sun).
  • The Sustainable Green Pages listing will continue to be a benefit to business members…
    …with the added bonus of a NESEA member logo to signify your commitment to the mission and values of this organization. Or, you can be an Individual level member and also purchase a listing, and be recognized as a member with a member logo in the directory.

Here is a summary of what we mean by ‘retiring’ the SGP Level of membership:

  • The SGP level (as a standalone) will no longer be considered a NESEA membership.
  • The SGP directory listing will still be included as a benefit to business level members, and available for purchase separately from (or in addition to Individual) membership for $100.
  • NESEA members who purchase a listing in addition to their membership, or have a listing as a business membership benefit, will be designated as NESEA members in the directory with a NESEA member logo.
  • We will phase out this level as current SGP level memberships lapse.
    That is, current (joined or renewed before May, after our new website launches) SGP level members will continue to be considered full members until it comes time to renew.

If you are a current SGP member and you are interested in renewing your NESEA membership, these are your options:

  • Renew at a Business level
    That way, you get the Sustainable Green Pages listing and the full benefits of NESEA business membership. (Click here to see level options and benefits).
  • Renew at the Individual ($55) level
    If you renew at this level (click here to see benefits), you can additionally purchase a Sustainable Green Pages listing for $100, and still be designated as a NESEA member in the directory. This arrangement does not come with the other perks that come with the business levels (one reason why we would encourage you to give a business level a try), but the combination would then include a $20 discount on a BuildingEnergy Conference registration, which our current SGP level does NOT offer.

Even if you decide not to purchase a listing, or try a business level, as an Individual / Emerging Professional member, you will have access to the members only directory (being listed is optional), which will help you connect to your fellow members (and help them connect to you).

We hope you will stay a member, but if the listing is all you really want, we won’t twist your arm! You will still be able to get one for $100, but you will not receive any of the benefits of being a member of our amazing community.

What about the Supporting and Sustaining individual levels?

To those that have joined at higher priced individual levels (Supporting, Sustaining) – we are retiring them as membership levels because although you gave us more (thank you!!), you did not get much more in return.

We truly appreciate your giving, which is why we would encourage you to contribute as a donation de-coupled from your member dues. That way, because we are a registered 501(c)3, you can get a tax deduction. To clarify that: membership dues are unfortunately NOT tax deductible, only donations are. By donating separately from your membership, we are more clearly able to count, and recognize you (if you wish) among our donors.

If you are a current holder of a supporting or sustaining membership, you will continue to be at that level until it is time for you to renew, and then you will have the opportunity to choose another level.

As always, we are here to support you – to connect you with other professionals, to help you learn from each other, and to continue to promote the adoption of sustainable energy practices in the built environment.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns – 413-774-6051 ext. 20, rheldt@nesea.org.

Thank you for being a part of our community!

Filed Under: Communications, NESEA, NESEA Members Tagged With: , ,

I Have A New Rule I Want Everyone To Follow

March 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

I had a great time at BuildingEnergy, as always, and met many people young and old, that wanted to get into the green career field; many of them came up to me and said “Can you help me get a job in green/sustainability/energy efficiency/etc?”

And I asked them all, “Are you a NESEA member?”

If they said yes, I said yes, and helped them. I think I got one kid on the path to a new job in about 15 minutes.

If no, I said, “Join NESEA, then come talk to me.” And they asked a second question, and I said, “We’re a community, and our community needs support. Become a member, then come talk to me, and I’ll be happy to help.”

The mothership needs the support and participation of committed NESEA Members. And we all talk about community, support, networking, learning the greater good, and how NESEA fulfills that need.

So I’m asking all of you to look deep into your wallets, examine your conscience, and ask yourself, “Have I paid my NESEA dues? Am I  indeed a member? Or am I a NESEAfaux?”

I’m also asking those that did workshops this year to donate their “bounty’ in the workshops back to NESEA. New readers may not be aware, but presenters at Tuesday workshops do get a cut. I’ve been doing it for years, and it has allowed me to become a lifetime member. Last year, Bernice Radle became a lifetime member because we donated back our workshop booty. This year, Erica Brabon became a NESEA lifetime member when we gave it back.

So now that we’ve had a successful conference, and are preparing for next year’s show, I join the chorus of Lifetime, Sustaining, Supporting, NESEA/ASES, Basic and Student members and ask you all to join. And when people ask you for pro-bono help, ask them if they are NESEA members, and encourage them to join if they are not.

And don’t help them until they are.

Thank you members, you help make the conference great. And for those of you that helped with the conference and forgot to renew – remember to do it, OK? It’s why we’re here.

Thanks, Andy

Filed Under: Emerging Professionals, NESEA, NESEA Members

It's a Wrap – Reflections upon re-entry after BE12

March 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Re-entry from BE is always difficult for me. It is always such a high to be part of such a huge, collaborative, well received effort, and always so hard to let it go and move back into the real world, to walk among mere mortals.

I am profoundly grateful. Grateful to the 100 volunteers and 9 dedicated staffers who planned and executed this conference, and took seriously the charge to make it more inclusive, to open it to new audiences.

To the on-site volunteers, without whom, quite literally, the conference would not run.

To our members, who wore their hearts on their sleeves and talked without prompting about what NESEA had meant to their careers. You truly moved me.

To the many attendees who approached me with ideas and enthusiasm about how we can improve NESEA and BuildingEnergy in coming years.

To Conference Chair Robert Leaver, for infusing into the format many opportunities to come together as a community (or many communities), to set our learning intentions, and to reflect and act upon what we’ve learned.

To Vice Chair Paul Eldrenkamp for not letting a single day pass before we start to seize on what we’ve learned and to apply it to BE13.

And to so many other folks who made this the best week of my year.

I invite you all to continue to be part of our conversation and our community. To share what you’ve learned, how you’ve changed, how your practice has changed. Your “aha” moments, your breakthroughs, your suggestions. And, of course, any leads you think we should be pursuing to grow this conference, this community and this movement.

Many thanks.

Jennifer

Filed Under: Green Building, Industry, NESEA, NESEA Members, Renewable Energy, Uncategorized

Thinking About Systems Thinking

February 25, 2012 By Leave a Comment

A few days from now, clean energy and building science professionals are gathering in Boston, at the NESEA Building Energy 2012 conference. For some it is an annual pilgrimage; for others it may be their first contact with this multi-disciplinary group.
This time around there is an extraordinary offering that I want you to know about: a one day workshop on the importance of thinking in systems.
The Secret Is In The System! The workshop of this name is scheduled for Tuesday March 6. It will be presented by two colleagues with deep experience in this area; Sara Schley and Linda Booth Sweeney.
Irrespective of your professional field, attending the workshop will expose you to a profound way to understand and approach complex problems. It’s a fitting lead-in to the Whole Systems In Action track of conference sessions to follow over the next two days, but it can provide insight into anyone’s circumstances; problems facing organizations, energy efficiency, building science, policy, security, finance, clean energy resource deployment, etc.
The workshop material can be useful to anyone who wants to get beneath the immediate, surface issues they face; to identify the leverage points that will effect the greatest positive change. By thinking in systems we’re able to analyze break-downs in small organizations such as design or construction firms just as effectively as problems on the macro scale, such as those that, like the BP oil spill, invoke “the tragedy of the commons.”
The Building Energy 2012 conference will have an array of important offerings from which to choose. I recommend this one.

Filed Under: BuildingEnergy Conference & Trade Show, Events, Green Building, NESEA, NESEA Members Tagged With:

We lost one of our dear friends and compatriots last night

February 16, 2012 By 2 Comments

We received word last night from Alex Wilson that Lifetime NESEA member and solar pioneer, Richard Gottlieb, passed away. He was 76 years old.

As a relative newbie to the NESEA community, I had the opportunity to meet Richard only once, just over two years ago at NESEA’s 35th anniversary celebration at the Steak Out in Brattleboro, Vermont, where he and his wife, Carol Levin, gave me a warm greeting. I have, however, had the opportunity to speak with several longtime NESEA members about Richard’s many contributions to our community over the years.

Richard and Carol have been very involved with NESEA throughout most of our existence. In the mid- 1990s, he installed NESEA’s entire grid-tied PV system on the roof at 50 Miles Street – one of the first such projects in the state, if not the nation. He was also heavily involved as a volunteer for NESEA’s Tour de Sol, and was a longtime sponsor of and attendee at the BuildingEnergy Conference. He and Carol were recognized with NESEA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2002, based on their tireless contributions to NESEA.

I am hoping that those of you who knew Richard better than I will respond to this blog post to fill us in with the colorful stories and accolades that I’m sure he is due. Alternatively, or in addition, here’s a link to the CaringBridge website, on which you can share your condolences with Carol. http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/richardgottlieb/journal.

Our condolences go out to Carol and to the rest of Richard’s family.

p.s. – There will be a service tomorrow (Friday) at 11 am at the Brattleboro Area Jewish Center, 151 Greenleaf St. in West Brattleboro, with burial following in Morningside Cemetery.

Filed Under: NESEA Members
« Older Posts
Newer Posts »