The Federal Energy Management Program (FEMP) honored federal energy champions selected for recognition as part of FEMP's 5th annual FEDS Spotlight at this year's virtual Energy Exchange. Honorees were selected by agency leaders and peers as federal champions who are working hard to implement exceptional resilient, efficient, and secure energy and water management practices and projects, while also helping their agencies to achieve mission success. The "FEDS Spotlight room" at the virtual Energy Exchange included a message of congratulations from the FEMP Director, agency posters featuring the honorees and descriptions of their achievements, and a slide presentation of all the champions.
Congratulations to the 2021 FEDS Spotlight honorees!
Scott Hunt
Kennedy Space CenterScott Hunt's leadership in sustainable building design led to the achievement of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Platinum certification of the NASA Kennedy Space Center’s newly constructed Central Campus Headquarters Phase 1 Building. Mr. Hunt’s perseverance and dedication propelled the project’s exceptional achievement by clearly documenting on-site renewable energy systems, commissioning efforts, and energy and water efficiency elements that will ensure significant improvements in building operations, efficiency, and cost savings for the long term. The lessons learned on the energy efficient design decisions, as well as implementation strategies documented by the team throughout the effort, provide a strong foundation to maximize sustainability during the construction of future Central Campus phases.
Polly Goldman
Agricultural Research ServicePolly Goldman is an enthusiastic biological sciences research technician who studies plant pathogens and replacements for ozone-depleting methyl bromide fumigation in strawberry cultivation at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) laboratory in Salinas, California. She was active in the design process of the new Agricultural Research Technology Center, currently under construction, that was designed to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design-certified. Ms. Goldman is also championing the 1.1 MW Salinas Solar ARS energy savings performance contract energy sales agreement photovoltaic project. She seeks out energy- and water-efficient alternatives to high-impact equipment and processes, such as ultra-low freezers, growth chambers, and irrigation, and encourages their adoption at the Salinas lab.
Max Edwards
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)Max Edwards serves as the Capital Projects and Sustainability Programs Manager for NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). During his first year in this role, Mr. Edwards initiated two efforts to improve NMFS facilities' performance and support the current Administration’s efforts to combat climate change and improve sustainability. The first initiative included assessing the performance of the current NMFS portfolio to establish a baseline Energy Use Index (EUI) average for future benchmarking and performance determinations. Mr. Edwards is also helping develop a "Facilities Design, Planning and Programming Standard," which outlines facilities design, planning, and programming standards and requirements needed to achieve high performance facilities that meet NMFS' target EUI metrics.
Joseph Bougard
Texas Army National Guard
As an engineer specialist in the energy department, Joseph Bougard works with multiple departments, state and federal agencies, and contractors to implement sustainable and innovative solutions to combat climate change and increase the organizational resiliency of the Texas Military Department. His efforts include implementing building and automation controls programming, energy audits, and rainwater harvesting programs, as well as planning, design, and implementation of two federally-funded microgrid projects supporting operations at Camp Swift and Camp Mabry. In addition to these responsibilities, Mr. Bougard has twice served as the acting energy program manager, fulfilling the annual energy and water usage reporting requirements of both the State of Texas and the National Guard Bureau.Karim Manji
U.S. Army Materiel Command
Karim Manji is a committed and knowledgeable leader skilled in addressing the challenges and complexities associated with Army energy programs. His responsibilities entail collaboration across multiple levels to ensure Army installations incorporate resilience features in all aspects of infrastructure and energy projects. His ability to engage at the ground, senior leader, and General Officer levels have played a key role in Army sustainability guidance and execution. He works with installations on climate change initiatives, and provides expertise to the Army's Utility Operational Process Team. He also leverages his environmental engineering background while working with energy managers across the Army on how the use of waste management principles can help to inform energy optimization.David Bryan Rogers
U.S. Army Corps of EngineersOver the past year, David "Bryan" Rogers played a key role in ensuring Army energy managers had continued access to the Meter Data Management System (MDMS). His efforts were instrumental to the Army receiving timely, accurate, and intuitive analytical data, critical to achieving accountability for energy and water management, and resulting in more efficient use of energy to reduce Army's utility consumption and costs. Mr. Rogers upgraded the enterprise system, increasing its analytical and reporting capabilities and allowing for real time decisions that directly impact energy conservation and resiliency. He and his team also developed a curriculum of 14 interactive web-based training courses that trained more than 2,500 personnel on the use of MDMS data.
Colonel Charles Dockery
Marine Corps Air Station MiramarAs commanding officer of Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, Colonel Charles Dockery was a steadfast supporter of the air station's efforts to execute the first Marine Corps full-scale Energy Resilience Readiness Exercise (ERRE) in February 2021. The exercise assessed the resilience and reliability of the air station's newly commissioned microgrid system, and whether it could keep the site up and running at full operational loads during a power disruption. During the day-long ERRE, the microgrid system completely disconnected from the commercial grid, and all operations were carried out at 100% capacity throughout its critical buildings and flight line. Solidifying the importance of energy security through air station policy, Colonel Dockery added requirements to conduct similar exercises and microgrid tests annually.
Rick Hatcher
Marine Corps Recruit Depot San DiegoAs the Installation Energy Manager for Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego, Rick Hatcher played a key role in the award of the Marine Corps' latest enhanced use lease (EUL). This multipronged, resilience-focused EUL will install a fully automated microgrid, 2.9 MW of back-up diesel generation for the depot's exclusive use, and up to 25 MW/100 MWh of battery energy storage with an interconnection to San Diego Gas & Electric's distribution network to deliver power for offtake. The EUL project is a major step toward improving the base’s ability to sustain essential training operations while 100% off the commercial power grid for 14 or more days, in the event of loss of commercial power or a power quality incident.
Emilio Rovira
Marine Corps Base QuanticoEmilio Rovira seamlessly stepped into the role of acting Installation Energy Manager, partnering with Marine Corps Base Quantico's local utility to implement a utility energy service contract (UESC). The UESC includes traditional energy conservation measures and energy resilience- and cybersecurity-focused measures that reduce energy, operations, and maintenance costs. This UESC award is a major step towards reducing Marine Corps Base Quantico's energy demand and improving its ability to sustain essential functions during a power disruption.
Konstantinos Kavasis
Naval Support Activity (NSA) Souda BayKonstantinos Kavasis serves as Navy Installation Energy Manager (IEM) for Naval Support Activity (NSA) Souda Bay, supporting projects that provide energy security by reducing energy consumption, increasing efficiency of critical infrastructure, and integrating cost-effective, mission compatible renewable energy technologies. For example, he led a $11.6M advanced microgrid with battery energy storage project and a $1.7M distributed energy PV and battery systems project that helped reduce NSA Souda Bay's overall energy intensity by 11% compared to FY 2015 baseline and 36.4% compared to FY 2003 baseline. Additionally, in FY 2020 he supported an innovative $2.4M project proposal for installation-wide building automation systems to generate energy savings and enhance the cyber security posture.
Jonathan Page
Navy Installations CommandAs a cyber-space subject matter expert for Navy Installations Command, Jonathan Page is responsible for disrupting, preventing, and mitigating adversary attempts to penetrate energy and mission-critical infrastructure resources in support of the Navy's critical assets and highest mission priorities. Mr. Page has completed 55 assessments for the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations while tracking cybersecurity risks and ensuring realistic mitigations are complete. Mr. Page also supports the digital transformation of the Navy's energy portfolio and provides a secure environment to collapse and standardize solutions into applications that automate processes to support Installation Energy Program Summaries and control system inventories.
Raj Rajendran
Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC) Public WorksRaj Rajendran serves as NAVFAC Public Works (PW) 8 Facility Related Control Systems (FRCS) Program Manager, responsible for planning and executing enterprise-wide PW cyber initiatives. In support of FRCS System Owners (SO) and Operational Technology (OT) operators, Mr. Rajendran assisted in the development of a comprehensive FRCS/Smart Grid strategy consisting of various enterprise initiatives that enabled SOs and regional project managers to meet installation objectives. Despite pandemic-related restrictions, he accomplished FY 2021 FRCS milestones in tandem with stakeholders, and aligned to Navy Installation Energy Program Summaries, that have significantly propelled SO progress in cyber-securing the Navy's OT systems by optimizing OT resource operations and reinforcing the Navy's power grid security.
Allan Curlee
General CounselServing as Associate General Counsel within General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force, Allan Curlee has been instrumental in advancing the Department of the Air Force vision of Mission Assurance through Energy Assurance. Mr. Curlee has collaborated on several groundbreaking energy resilience initiatives and projects, providing essential guidance in navigating authorities for developing alternative project funding and approaches, including Finance First, RESRV, and Energy-as-a-Service. He also was highly influential in the recent signing of the Mountain Home Memorandum of Understanding, intended to achieve reduced and/or shared costs and risk reductions by improving Mountain Home Air Force Base water resilience.
Colonel Bridget Gigliotti
Joint Base McGuire-Dix-LakehurstColonel Bridget Gigliotti has been a champion of energy resilience efforts in her role as the Commander of Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JB MDL) and 87th Air Base Wing. During her time as Commander, Col Gigliotti has worked to identify and ensure that energy resilience gaps are being closed at JB MDL. In November 2020, Col Gigliotti oversaw the JB MDL Energy Resilience Readiness Exercise (ERRE). As the first ERRE conducted at a Joint Base, the lessons learned and best practices have contributed immensely to Department of the Air Force policy guidance and the strategic planning and execution of ERREs at other Department of Air Force installations.
Kevin Leachman
Air Force Civil Engineer CenterKevin Leachman, a water quality subject matter expert at Air Force Civil Engineer Center Environmental Quality Technical Support Branch, worked with the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Environment, Safety, and Infrastructure to launch the Department’s response to America's Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA) in its effort to enhance water resilience enterprise-wide. AWIA requires installations to develop risk and resilience assessments and emergency response plans of community water systems by June 2021 and December 2021, respectively. Mr. Leachman championed the AWIA Working Group, was one of the early collaborators on methodology development, and has been instrumental in compliance tracking.
Hugh Denny
Indian Health ServiceHugh Denny, Health Facilities Director at the HHS Indian Health Service Alaska Area, works in partnership with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium's (ANTHC) Rural Energy Program to ensure that energy security and resiliency and safe water and sanitation is not only affordable for rural Alaskan communities, but also sustainable through renewable and alternative energy solutions. In FY 2020, IHS Alaska Area and ANTHC Rural Energy worked together to implement energy-efficient and alternative-energy solutions for two communities. The two projects, involving heat recovery and a modular biomass boiler, reduced IHS diesel fuel use by about 16,000 gallons per year and costs by $57,500, while improving plant efficiencies by 30–40%.
Matthew Ireland and Kami Wooldridge
Indian Health ServiceMatthew Ireland and Kami Wooldridge, engineers with the HHS Indian Health Service (IHS) Bemidji Area, worked with the IHS Environmental Steering Committee and the local utility to install a 40-kilowatt roof-mounted photovoltaic renewable energy system at the IHS Cass Lake Hospital in Minnesota. The system will reduce energy consumption by 52,000 kWh per year, which is three percent of the facility's total annual electricity use. Estimated first year cost savings are just over $3,400. This solar array project is the first photovoltaic project for an IHS-owned federal health care facility in the Bemidji Area, and will serve as a model for other IHS installations.
Tim Harper
Federal Law Enforcement Training CentersLed by energy manager Tim Harper, over the last several years, Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers (FLETC) has worked hard to implement an on-site renewable project at the FLETC Cheltenham, Maryland Training Delivery Point (TDP). Following the removal of a photovoltaic (PV) array from an enterprise-wide energy savings performance contract, Mr. Harper worked with various government entities over several years to add a third-party owned PV array at the Cheltenham TDP. After these failed attempts, due to Mr. Harper's persistence the site will successfully construct a 1.875 MW PV solar array in 2021 through a utility energy service contract awarded to Washington Gas Light in 2018. This FLETC-owned PV system, containing more than 6,000 panels, will supply 50-60% of the site's electrical usage, and will save more than an estimated $400,000 in energy costs annually.
Jherica Belle and Michael Saylor
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration ServicesThe U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has been a leader in resilience and climate change efforts for the Department of Homeland Security. This past year, through numerous financial and resource constraints, Michael Saylor and Jherica Belle continued to build a robust resilience and climate change program within their Component. They have demonstrated this effort by standing up a dedicated working group to support the focus areas of USCIS' most critical assets, including energy/water, facilities, information communications and technology, and transportation. This working group meets regularly to review their plan, focus areas, and supply chain requirements, to help ensure continuous and reliable systems that serve the USCIS and immigration services.
Ryan Burke
Drug Enforcement AgencyContracting Officer Ryan Burke was assigned to the Drug Enforcement Agency's (DEA's) first energy savings performance contract (ESPC), the "EPIC Solar" project, and DEA's first utility energy service contract (UESC), the "Miami Lab UESC Project." With no prior ESPC or UESC experience, Mr. Burke got up to speed, secured timely approvals for major decisions, and oversaw the acquisition process. EPIC Solar utilized an ESPC energy sales agreement that will achieve about $1 million in cost savings and alleviate the burden of operations and maintenance for DEA. The Department of Energy used DEA's contract as a basis for its toolkit on best practices for implementing this type of project for other government agencies. The UESC Project will retrofit lighting and upgrade HVAC controls, saving more than $100,000 in energy costs annually.
Patrick Holmes
Federal Bureau of InvestigationPatrick Holmes is the energy manager and a project manager for the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Training Center on the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, coordinating the facility's energy-related projects and helping the FBI continue its progress toward achieving its energy goals. In 2020, Mr. Holmes initiated the Department of Energy's ISO 50001-Ready Energy Management System (EnMS) process for the FBI-Redstone Campus, pulling together the disparate components of the energy program into a cohesive EnMS and implementing the elements on the ground. The improvements achieved through the 50001 Ready Program are expected to increase efficiency and reduce the facility’s carbon footprint.
Timber Moore
Federal Bureau of PrisonsSince assuming the role of National Energy Program Manager for the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in 2020, Timber Moore has revitalized BOP's use of performance contracting to help achieve the agency's sustainability goals. Mr. Moore resumed development of two UESCs that were on hold since 2018, which will introduce 27 energy conservation measures to reduce energy and water usage at two different federal facilities, address aging infrastructure, and modernize a life safety system. He is also exploring different contract vehicles yet to be utilized at BOP, including three additional performance contracts that focus on expanding BOP's use of renewable energy. These projects will also deploy the use of technologies such as battery storage and combined heat and power, with the goal of optimizing electricity demand.
Christopher Brazell
VA Sierra Pacific NetworkChristopher Brazell serves as a regional fleet manager for Veterans Affairs (VA) integrated Service Network 21, an additional duty on top of his engineering responsibilities. Through his swift attention and notable support, he is helping to lead VA's efforts to make immediate progress on the President's agenda for a zero-emission federal fleet. When the General Services Administration reached out to VA with a time-sensitive opportunity to replace leased gas vehicles with electric vehicles, Mr. Brazell helped multiple locations in his region select vehicles to replace with plug-in hybrids. He is also an active participant in VA's new internal working group that is planning for VA's rapid transition to zero emission vehicles.
Katrina Chow
VA Sierra Pacific NetworkKatrina Chow has effectively led the San Francisco VA Medical Center's $70 million utility energy service contract (UESC) for more than three years, working to optimize energy production and increase the efficiency of electrical systems within the medical system. Over the last year, she has completed two contract modifications and planned or supervised installation of many energy conservation measures, including the replacement of critical air handing units, photovoltaic system monitoring, chiller replacement, transformers and switch gear replacements, boiler replacement, and installation of an deaerator. She has also started work on a second UESC with the local utility to further improve the medical center facilities.
Lisa Hermenau
Providence VA Medical CenterIn partnership with her local utility, National Grid, Lisa Hermenau used a utility energy service contract to complete a full LED lighting conversion project at the Providence, Rhode Island VA Medical Center. This was the first UESC LED lighting conversion in Veteran Integrated Service Network Region 1. The project converts all interior and exterior fluorescent lighting on campus to a $1.3M standardized volumetric LED lighting system, saves about $250,000 annually, and reduces operations and maintenance costs by $60,000 per year. Ms. Hermenau was also able to take advantage of on-bill financing and a utility rebate of more than $420,000 that brings the payback of the project to under four years.