As a Partner firm,Daryl DeJean  and Lee Stevens were invited by the US EPA ENERGY STAR Program to participate in the National Facilities Management & Technology Conference the week of March 14-17, 2011. Directors of Facilities and Engineering from all over the US came to learn about new Best Practices, Strategies  and Implementation in the Facilities Management profession.

A few innovations were displayed by manufacturers but for the most part, the profession is seeking simple and easy ways to begin or continue their Sustainability Initiatives.

Daryl DeJean was asked at the last minute to give a speech on  Energy Procurement. In light of the earthquake and tsunami causing the nuclear plant disaster in Japan, ETA brought up to the attention of the 60 attendees the importance of assessing risks of systems failures and the need for strong back up systems at all times. Efficiency is not conservation.

Daryl DeJean was invited to give a seminar on Energy Procurement at the Conference. Many attendees came up to him including a subject expert in the filed to commend Daryl on the  scope, content and delivery of the material.

His coverage of Risk in Procurement and positive and immediate impact on the organizations or businesses' Resource Productivity was the highlight of the event. He drew a correlation between the energy procurement and maintenance challenges of facility managers with renewable energy or energy efficiency between the nuclear plant accident following the tsunami and earthquake in Japan. He highlighted the fact that tremendous riks are associated with running any facility portfolio of energy sources and the need for alternative  or back up solutions. The audience totally agreed with this approach and the strategic thinking and lesson learned from our Japanese facilitles managers counterparts. Not one single set of energy sources is beyond vulnerability: building back up systems is crucial in any facilities management contingency and  disaster planning initiative.

The National Facilities Management & Technology Conference is the national event for the facilities management profession where success stories, technologies, best practices are shared among all facilities managers. This is a key forum for the profession to critique itself and build knowledge on all vital building systems as well as  enhancing the human capital the most crucial component.

Featured at the Conference were:

   1. "defensible capital budgets" in an unceratin economy  and impact of new regulations and end- users needs

   2. sustainability as opposed to just green   

  3. new solutions such as daylighting and the savings

  4. The Energy Independence and Secuirty Act of 2007 (EISA) 2007) and the technologies that are in and the obsolete ones. How it affects Federal Buildings across the country.

  5. Integrated Workplace Management Systems (IWMS): the  potential savings ?

  6. wind power and how it is mainstreamed?

  7. water management issues looming: rain water catchment systems

  8. Net Zero Solutions and how to integrate them in a building retrofit.