NCBC Highlights 2008

On April 22, during the Opening Plenary and Welcome session, Liz Fischer of PECI presented the 2008 Benner Awards to the organization and the individual that made the year's greatest strides in establishing commissioning as "business as usual." The award, created in memory of Nancy Benner and her vision for energy efficiency, is presented at NCBC each year to honor those whose work advances the commissioning industry toward this goal. Benner Award recipients are selected through a nomination process, then evaluated by a committee of national commissioning industry experts from the public and private sectors that review and select based on stringent criteria.

This year's winning organization is the California Commissioning Collaborative (CCC), a statewide collaborative started eight years ago as an ad-hoc group to advise the California Energy Commission. In 2004 the CCC incorporated as a non-profit organization with funding from stakeholder organizations including Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD), SEMPRA utilities, the California Energy Commission and their Public Interest Energy Research arm (PIER), the Division of the State Architect, and the USDOE.

The CCC's ambitious work plan has contributed tremendous resources, tools and knowledge to educate the commissioning industry not only in California, but nationwide. Some of their initiatives include: the California Commissioning Guides for New and Existing Buildings, Guidelines for Verification of Savings, and a recently sponsored study to characterize the education and training needs of commissioning providers in California.

Gregg Ander, CCC Vice Chair, accepted the award on behalf of the Collaborative. He stressed the importance of implementing standards and guidelines in relation to California's far-reaching energy programs. Specifically, he highlighted continued support for efforts in measurement and verification, and the CCC's desire to "make sure it's understood by service providers, regulators what the impact will be for these critical activities."

Michael English, a founding partner of Horizon Engineering, was this year's individual award winner. Michael has made a monumental impact on the growth and success of the industry, not only within his own company, but also through his involvement with the Building Commissioning Association (BCA), the USGBC, and as a key contributor to LEED 2.2. His extensive experience in building commissioning and related services for

commercial, educational, cultural, healthcare and residential facilities numbers nearly 20 years. Michael's work at Horizon has encompassed, among many other initiatives, the creation of an innovative real-time Online Deficiency Database.

Throughout his career, Michael has also remained passionate about educating those in the industry. He instituted a rigorous commissioning training program for his employees, formerly acted as president of the BCA, and helped to found the BCA's challenging Certified Commissioning Provider (CCP) Program.

As Michael accepted his award, he thanked his wife and his partners and spoke of his passion for the industry, saying that we must persevere in finding the next wave of commissioning professionals. He asked the audience to focus on hiring quality employees and to avoid providing a "watered down" product to customers as the industry grows larger.

Both award winners touched on how the industry has changed in recent years and the significance of quality and consistency. Yet despite the many uncertainties sure to be on the horizon as we strive for greater energy efficiency, one thing is clear-with the resources and research provided by the CCC and committed individuals like Michael English, the industry is well positioned to educate both new and current professionals and achieve success.