December 2011 Member Spotlight: Monica Funston Treadway

Name: Monica Funston Treadway

USGBC-NCC Member Since: 2008 

What's your occupation?

My day job is as a senior Project Manager with Hathaway Dinwiddie. I split my time: about half the time, I’m an internal consultant on sustainable projects and in-house LEED educator, and the other half spend on the Stanford campus working on new construction, interior improvements and historical renovation.

I started at HD in 1999 after a two-year internship with PNM at a power plant in the Four Corners area of New Mexico. In some ways, it was like coming home for me; I’d gone to PNM after completing my Master’s in Structural Engineering at UNM, but my undergraduate degree is a BS in Structural Engineering from Stanford.

My very first project at HD was the James H. Clark Center for the Bio-X project at Stanford. Sir Norman Foster designed it, and it incorporated some revolutionary concepts in shared workspace, structural design, and sustainability. It was a $104-million-dollar project, and my first introduction to sustainability, and I was a newly minted PE straight out of graduate school.

They say that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, and I have to think that my experience with the Clark Center project is a great example of that in action. Not many new PE’s get to work on that kind of project, at that kind of scale.

December 2011 Member Spotlight: Judith Sayler

Name: Judith Sayler 

Member Since: 2008 

What's your occupation? 

Sayler has been involved in marketing and business development for the architectural, engineering and construction (A/E/C) industry since 1985. After having graduated with an MS degree in Anthropology (Archaeology specialization) the year before, she says she fell into a position with an architectural firm as an office manager and was surprised that many firms had started hiring people to help with business development efforts. Before there was a pervasive view that A/E/C firms should not advertise and that work would come in the door on its own based on word of mouth, but as competition increased it was unrealistic. Sayler joined the Society for Marketing Professional Services which focuses solely on the A/E/C industry and eventually received her certification as a marketing professional. During her career, in addition to working for architectural firms, she has also worked for structural engineering, civil engineering, construction management and general contracting firms, and currently at Gordon Prill, an architectural, MEP and general contracting firm in Mountain View. She kids all she has left to round out the disciplines is geotechnical/environmental engineering!

How did you get involved in green building?
Again, Sayler says she fell into involvement with green building. Although she had been involved in the past on numerous committees for the AIA, and APWA in the South Bay, she knew nothing about the USGBC until she met Heather Durham several years ago at an AIA tour. Durham invited her to join a group of people who were involved with efforts to start a Silicon Valley branch of the USGBC-NCC. Once the branch was started, Durham served as its first Programs Committee Chair and Sayler has served on the committee ever since. 

Life as a Green School Fellow at Sacramento City Unified School District

Sacramento Unified was among a few districts selected to partner with USGBC in a new initiative to green school districts.

By Farah McDill, USGBC Green Schools Fellow, Sacramento
 

Over the last six months, my life has changed dramatically. Not only did I relocate from Colorado to California, but I was given a position in an organization that I respect, in a school district that I admire, doing a job that I love. In July of 2011, Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) was one of two school districts in the country to receive a Center for Green Schools UTC Fellow. SCUSD was selected to host a Fellow for three years to help achieve sustainability goals and create change throughout the organization.

Superintendent Jonathan Raymond was introduced to the idea of creating healthy, resource efficient learning environments in November of 2010, while attending the Greening of America’s Schools Summit at the Redford Center in Sundance, Utah with Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. Armed with the information received at the Summit, Superintendent Raymond began working tirelessly to guide the District toward a more sustainable future. This commitment demonstrated the District’s need for dedicated staff to guide and assist the green efforts. The top-down support across the District is unmatched, and as the Green Schools Fellow it is my job to initiate the grassroots effort with students, teachers and community members.

GreenFinanceSF-Commercial Program Announced

As part of San Francisco's effort to drive environmental and economic innovation, Mayor Ed Lee and SF Environment Director Melanie Nutter recently announced a groundbreaking program to encourage businesses to undertake climate-friendly building improvements and attract significant new capital to pay for them.

The GreenFinanceSF-Commercial program is a Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) program designed to give commercial property owners a new form of financing for the installation of energy efficiency, renewable energy, and water conservation improvements.

"The commercial PACE program is the next big step forward in San Francisco's efforts to dramatically reduce energy use and carbon emissions," declared Mayor Lee. "We are excited about the potential to unlock an enormous amount of private investment - from a wide range of sources - and create local construction jobs."

San Francisco's 16,000+ commercial buildings account for half of citywide energy use and 27% of the city's carbon footprint. The program strives to help commercial property owners reduce operating costs, improve occupant health and comfort, enhance building value, and mitigate environmental impact while providing financial institutions a new and secure vehicle to finance projects at attractive rates. A similar program was recently launched in Los Angeles County.

For more information about GreenFinanceSF, including program terms, process, eligible measures, and other resources, visit www.greenfinancesf.org.

Greenbuild 2012: Call for Sub-Committee Volunteers

The Northern California Chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council is proud to be the Host Chapter of Greenbuild 2012! The conference theme, @Greenbuild, represents the intersection of technology, building and the global sustainability movement. Greenbuild 2012 will bring together the voices and ideas of the green building community as well as cutting-edge technologies – technologies that are critically important to advancing the green building mission. As the globe’s nexus of technology and success, there is no better place to hold Greenbuild than in San Francisco. This conference is anticipated to be the largest ever, and is expected to bring over 35,000 attendees to the area.

This is an exciting time for green building, and we have a great opportunity to showcase our innovative and forward-thinking region. USGBC-NCC will work with National USGBC staff to put together Greenbuild, and we have been assigned specific tasks that will be executed through volunteer sub-committees. We have assembled a host committee to oversee these various sub-committees, and have appointed two Greenbuild co-chairs for 2012:

USGBC - Northern California Chapter's First Ten Years

Contributed by Sharon Refvem, AIA, LEED AP BD+C, Founding member and past President

In August of 2001 in Tucson Arizona, at the annual, pre-GreenBuild, USGBC National gathering, a call went out for people interested in forming a USGBC Chapter in northern California. A group of about 30 people showed up the next morning to talk about what it would take to begin a chapter, names and contact information were gathered, and the Steering Committee was formed. The Steering Committee met monthly in San Francisco over the next two years to pursue the establishment of the chapter. During that time the Committee grew and shrank, but a core group of about a dozen people provided the continuity and dedication needed to organize and launch the chapter.

The official 501(c)3 paperwork was submitted to the State and USGBC National as the Northern California Chapter moved from organizing group, then provisional chapter, to full Chapter status in 2004. The Northern California Chapter (NCC) name and the Chapter territory, which includes most of northern California south through Monterey County and east to the Nevada border, were then officially recorded.

Thank You GCI General Contractors

USGBC-NCC welcomes back GCI General Contractors as a renewed Silver Chapter sponsor.

“GCI considers green building and LEED to be central to our business strategy, so it’s important for us to partner with and support USGBC-Northern California Chapter. The Chapter’s role and impact is unique - as a convener, educator and policy advocate, USGBC-NCC engages all sectors of the industry, and has contributed enormously to the growth of green building in the Bay Area,” said James Jenkins, President of GCI.

GCI is a San Francisco based commercial contracting and construction management firm that specializes in commercial interior, corporate facility, and building renovation projects throughout the Bay Area and Northern California.

GCI has been an industry leader in promoting green construction practices and guidelines to the commercial real estate sector in San Francisco and the Bay Area. In 2001, GCI became the first commercial contractor to perfect indoor air-quality systems and material recycling programs in spite of the logistical challenges imposed by high-rise buildings and without significant cost increases to their clients.

GCI has completed 24 LEED construction projects to date: 19 are certified and 5 are in review, including one of the first LEED-CI projects in San Francisco in 2003-2004: the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). ClimateWorks Foundation, awarded LEED-CI Platinum in February 2010, is the highest rated LEED-CI project in California under v2.0 and the 3rd highest ever.

GCI has completed approximately 22% of all LEED-CI projects constructed in San Francisco, and almost 70% of their total LEED projects have been certified LEED-CI Gold or higher.

USGBC-NCC Executive Director, Dan Geiger, said, “We highly value GCI General Contractors’ leadership and support. They’ve always been actively involved with USGBC, and help the Chapter in so many ways. Companies like GCI make our work possible - on behalf of the industry and the green building movement, thank you very much!"

For more information about GCI, visit gcigc.com.

USGBC-NCC’s work is made possible by support from visionary firms like GCI General Contractors. Learn more about sponsorship opportunities >>