By Grey Lee
Thank you to Boston Properties, National Grid, Eversource, View, Arup, Turner, Elkus Manfredi, and AHA Consulting Engineers for signing up to be our major sponsors. We look forward to continuing to help you connect to our professional community to achieve more green buildings!
Throughout the evening, I was constantly bumping into the leaders of our community, and the up-and-coming leaders who were great to see. We had some great speakers. If you weren't impressed by Bryan Koop, well I don't know what to do with you. He is demonstrating that hard-nosed commercial real estate development can embrace and profit from taking on these green building projects. Practitioners in design and engineering constantly hear from owners that green buildings are too expensive, that it's not justifiable to go for certification, that it's not going to fit in the schedule. It's too bad. They are missing out. Clearly, smart operating developers, a team like the one at Boston Properties, have figured it out. They are building LEED certified buildings throughout the Boston regional market and attaining premium rents and attracting awesome tenants. We commend their work.
It was great to hear from Austin Blackmon at the City of Boston and to have him see the vibrant community of green building professionals who are ready to support the City's initiatives such as Climate Ready Boston and to continue to execute awesome projects. We are especially ready to see more LEED O+M projects – existing buildings embracing the processes of improvement and benefiting from the rigors or the LEED process. Look at what companies like AHA have done under the leadership of Bob Andrews – almost 30M s.f. of LEED certified space in existing buildings (well, this is throughout the country, but some big ones in Boston for sure). The institutional and government commitments for improved performance in the building sector – for energy efficiency, GHG reductions, improved air quality, and other goals – are going to be implemented by the people who were at the Showcase. It is an exciting crew to be around.
As I walked past the showboards on display, I overheard many conversations that were about building science, but also the great sounds of laughter, and cheerful friendly banter. So many people were catching up with colleagues who they had worked with some time ago together on a project. It was like a family reunion.
Thank you to all the special guests including our other sponsors, including Menck, HDR, The Green Engineer, Gerding Elden, Finegold Alexander, Suffolk, Watergrip Media, Ellenzweig, BR+A, Aircuity, and Erlab.
I was proud to have been part of the team who organized and built out the Showcase to help strengthen our position as a community delivering solutions to the real estate sector and our government and institutional partners who share our mission. I was thrilled to communicate to those agents how ready we are to step up and transform the built environment for net positive outcomes for our community.
Thank you to all who were able to participate, congratulations to the award winners, and I hope to see more of our community at upcoming events with USGBC MA. Let's continue working on more green buildings!
Don't forget to come out to Healthy Materials Summit 2016, October 26th at Google's Cambridge HQ!
Global Head of Sustainability, Superior Essex
Sustainability Director, Steven Winter Associates
PE | Associate, LeMessurier
Vice President, AEW’s Architecture & Engineering group
Interior Designer, Jacobs, Boston
Senior Vice President, Market Transformation and Development U.S. Green Building Council
AIA LEED AP BD+C | Senior Associate, Gensler Boston 
LEED Fellow, WELL AP | Founder and Principal, Ecoworks Studio
AIA, LEED AP BD+C, WELL AP
LEED AP BD+C | Environmental Sustainability Manager, Armstrong World Industries
Assistant Professor of Exposure Science | Director of the Healthy Buildings program
Managing Director, Harvard University Office for Sustainability
Principal & Director of Certifications and Consulting, Epsten Group, Inc.
Vice President of Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility, Jamestown
Director of Sustainability Programs, DASNY | LEED AP BD+C
Associate Principal, BuroHappold Engineering
Senior Vice President, Sustainability at Kilroy Realty Corporation
Co-Founder, Facilitator at The Laurentia Project | LEED AP BD+C, LFA
Vice President of Sustainable Development, Shaw
Founder and President, Board of the Healthy Building Network
Building Technology Director, Kingspan North America
LEED® AP ID+C, BD+C, USGBC Faculty, WELL® AP, WELL Faculty and Fitwel Ambassador
Workplace Strategy Expert and Researcher, EYP
Principal, Integrated Ecostrategy
Senior Vice President, International WELL Building Institute
Principal, Bruner/Cott
Architect, Associate, and Sustainability Design Leader, Stantec Architecture and Engineering
FAIA, LEED Fellow, Long Green Specs
Products & Materials Specialist, BuildingGreen
Director of Acquisitions and Development
Director of Restorative Enterprise, Interface
Sustainability Manager, Consigli Construction Company