Seeing Jen's post prompted me to write in support of the Madison Park Technical Vocational High School program (Greenbuild Legacy Project). I spoke to the students earlier in the year and it is a great program. I'll reach out to our HR about interns.
I am the Director of Facilities Management Integration and Sustainability for Shawmut Design and Construction (http://www.shawmut.com/). We're a $1.3 billion / year construction management firm based in Boston with offices in New York, Springfield (MA), New Haven, Providence, Chicago, Miami, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Most of my work is in New England in academic, cultural/historic, commercial, and health care/life science. I've been at Shawmut for 2 years, having previously worked as construction manager for UNICEF Rwanda, energy manager for Philips Electronics (N & S American accounts), and leading the green building program for Harvard University. I'm a LEED Fellow, former chair of the EA TAG, and former member of the USGBC BOD. In addition to my work at Shawmut I teach graduate courses on green building at two local universities.
Most of my focus at SDC is on how we can better prepare clients for efficient building operations as well as sustainability consulting for a few projects and QA/QC on all of our LEED stuff. I'm interested in learning how others get their positions funded (I'm 100% billable) and what value you're seeing from your sustainability efforts. I'd also like to see consensus and real improvement around how C&D waste diversion is defined and reported as the more I speak with haulers, processors, state officials, and other contractors the more certain I am that most "recycling" rates are bogus. Massachusetts DEP reports that C&D recycling in the state (one of the better states for recycling) is at 30% (this includes comingled and source separated) yet every LEED project is still submitting rates completely contrary to the state reporting (even after accounting for different definitions of recycling between LEED and MA DEP). I'm not so much worried about getting these LEED points, but I would like to see real improvement / market transformation in this area for all projects and feel like years of artificially high commingled rates have stalled progress.
I have two daughters (3 months and 2 years), 3 cats (all brought back from Rwanda) and 1 wife. We live in Dedham, MA.