2021 Board of Directors Election

Mechanical Engineer, Bala

I am a mechanical engineer with over 21 years of experience in the MEP Industry. I have acted as both PM and technical lead on projects I am involved in. I have led design teams through all stages of a project and have extensive on site experience implementing systems.

What is your background in the green building industry?

I have worked on numerous LEED projects and projects which required reduced energy consumption to net zero energy. I have worked closely with sustainability consultants and architects on building orientation, glazing etc system selection, space planning etc.

List organizations in the building and/or environmental industries you are actively involved in:

ASHRAE, CIBSE, GSAPP University of Columbia, PMP

Briefly list your areas of expertise. For example; energy, renewable energy, water, indoor air quality, resiliency, health and wellness:

HVAC design, MEP coordination, energy consulting, IAQ, Filtration.

Describe any involvement and interactions with Built Environment Plus (USGBC MA) in the past five years:

I have only recently moved to Boston (September 2020). I have attended one online seminar with BEP and really enjoyed it. I’m keen to become more involved.

What will you bring to the Board of Directors?

As an Irish engineer that’s worked and lived in many countries including Ireland, UK, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Australia, New Zealand and the US, I’d like to think I could bring a different perspective to the board. I have also worked across multiple built environment sectors so would love to share my experiences and hopefully gain some more. I am passionate about sustainability and high performing buildings and want to influence as best I can the region around me.

Chief Sustainability Officer, LAER Realty Partners

Craig Foley is a leading national voice on sustainability in the real estate industry. Craig’s combination of real estate and energy management skills give him a unique perspective about sustainable energy solutions and subject matter expertise on greening the MLS and high-performance home valuation and marketing and the impact of climate change on the real estate industry. He is the founder of Sustainable Real Estate Consulting Services, a LEED Green Associate and the chief sustainability officer for LAER Realty Partners. As a real estate broker, he has sold several high-performance projects in and around Greater Boston. He is the team co-founder of REthink39 Group. REthink39 is devoted to lowering the 39% of U.S. energy consumption attributed to the built environment and believes they can be part of a solution with every transaction closed.

What is your background in the green building industry?

As a real estate consultant, he has partnered with a broad range of companies including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, Elevate Energy, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center. Craig was one of five people in the U.S. to receive the EverGreen Award by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) in 2013. His committee work at NAR includes chairing the Sustainability Advisory Group in 2019. In 2020 Craig was honored to be asked to chair NAR President Vince Malta’s Advisory Group on Sustainability. He also serves on the Energy Advisory Council for Fannie Mae and the Energy Efficiency Task Force for Freddie Mac.

List organizations in the building and/or environmental industries you are actively involved in:

USGBC MA Chapter 2012-2017 Led an initiative in the residential committee to update the green data fields in the state of MA’s main MLS – MLS PIN. Of the 20 recommendations that we made, 16 were implemented into the MLS in 2015.

Extensive experience leading sustainability initiatives at the National Assoc of Realtors (NAR). Led a member driven initiative to create the Sustainability Advisory Group (SAG). Chaired the SAG in 2019. NAR 2020 President asked me to chair a Presidential Advisory Group to explore the impact of extreme weather events on the real estate industry. All of the PAG’s recommendations to the NAR leadership team where adopted including creating a 10 year sustainability plan for the largest trade organization in the U.S. The work continues in 2021 as we begin implementation of that plan.

Briefly list your areas of expertise. For example; energy, renewable energy, water, indoor air quality, resiliency, health and wellness:

Valuation and marketing of high- performance homes. Here’s an article I wrote for NESEA’s Building Energy Magazine https://www.buildingenergymagazine-digital.com/eneb/0218_fall_2018/MobilePagedArticle.action?articleId=1422004

Describe any involvement and interactions with Built Environment Plus (USGBC MA) in the past five years:

Worked on both the residential committee and the advocacy committee through 2017.

What will you bring to the Board of Directors?

My strength would be helping Built Environment Plus engage the real estate sector. I speak energy efficiency and renewables and I am fluent in real estate. I believe that I can be an effective translator between green building leaders and real estate leaders in MA.

Sustainability Coordinator, Elkus Manfredi Architects

Kristen graduated from the University of Nebraska with a dual Masters in Architecture and Community and Regional Planning. She worked as a designer on nearly every project type at firms in Lincoln, Philadelphia, Denver, Germany, before landing in Seattle at Boxwood – a small sustainable design firm. For the first half of her career she honed her integrative design process and research skills on projects such as Point Defiance Zoo Animal Hospital, Seattle’s Joint Training Facility, Mt. Baker Light Rail Station, as well as several wineries, park structures, non-profit projects and residences. As a Principal at Boxwood, Kristen gained executive experience in management and business development. Kristen and her family were relocated to Boston during the recession where she added being a Sustainability Coordinator at Elkus Manfredi Architects and a Biomimicry design studio instructor and thesis advisor at the BAC to her more than 20 years of experience.

What is your background in the green building industry?

Throughout her career, Kristen has focused on implementing sustainable design strategies in her projects. This involved developing an integrative design process, rating system expertise, and researching regenerative systems and responsible materials. Kristen was actively involved in the Seattle AIA COTE and co-founded a Sustainability Salon in the early years of LEED to help designers navigate the rating system and sustainable design topics. At Boxwood she led the sustainability consulting work and collaborated with product manufacturers on innovative project installations. At Elkus Manfredi Architects she is a full-time Sustainability Coordinator leading their AIA 2030 Commitment effort and advising project teams on optimizing energy efficiency and health and wellness goals. She organizes firm-wide continuing education on a range of sustainability issues and is constantly developing new resources for designers including performance analysis work flows, embodied carbon analysis and healthy materials research.

List organizations in the building and/or environmental industries you are actively involved in:

Currently active member of BE+, BSA, Carbon Leadership Forum, Sustainable Design Leaders Peer Network, Sustainable Arlington, and Zero Waste Arlington. Past leadership experience as USGBC Green Build Legacy Committee co-chair, advisory panel member of ILFI’s Living Community 50, and led AIA Seattle Diversity Roundtable and COTE activities.

Briefly list your areas of expertise. For example; energy, renewable energy, water, indoor air quality, resiliency, health and wellness:

Biomimicry, health and wellness strategies, responsible materials and finishes, adaptive reuse, recycling, overall sustainable site strategies.

Describe any involvement and interactions with Built Environment Plus (USGBC MA) in the past five years:

Co-chair of the Legacy Committee for USGBC MA Boston Greenbuild, volunteer at the USGBC MA Green Building Showcase, panel presenter for Emerging Professionals presentation and participant in the Chapter Advocacy and Health and Wellness Roundtables. 

What will you bring to the Board of Directors?

I bring integrity, enthusiasm, creativity, curiosity and maybe a little humor to everything I am involved in. My leadership and community engagement experience from past involvement on boards for various schools, parent teacher associations and community organizations has helped me develop strategic planning and communication skills, as well as an empathetic, collaborative and constructive approach to challenges.

Project Development Manager, YouthBuild Boston

I am from Albuquerque, New Mexico and received a Bachelor of Arts in Environmental Design with an emphasis in Landscape Architecture from the University of New Mexico (UNM). I earned my Master of Architecture degree from the Boston Architectural College (BAC) and am now a licensed architect. For most of my life, I have worked in community-based nonprofits and nearly all of them have focused on youth in marginalized communities. I have always focused on the intersection of resiliency and social equity, which I believe work hand-in-hand. My approach to tackling tough problems comes from the old phrase, “think global, act local”, where I focus on smaller community-based projects, installations, and engagement strategies that can be scaled up yet easily understood by the community itself. I currently work for YouthBuild Boston, where I manage the development and design of our affordable housing projects which we use as our training sites.

What is your background in the green building industry?

Addressing social equity is addressing resiliency. Safely adjusting disenfranchised communities that have poor infrastructures, inefficient housing stock, no access to healthy foods, bad public transportation, etc can have a bigger impact on the overall environment than net-zero new construction. My early work includes being a Research Service Learning Program co-teacher at UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning in 2006. My class worked with the low-income Martineztown Neighborhood to develop policy and design improvements to fix broken storm water and sewer infrastructure in the community. Later, From 2014-2016 I worked with the Fairmount/Indigo Line CDC Collaborative (FIC) to spearhead a sustainable, smart growth agenda along the 9-mile Fairmount commuter rail line in Boston, MA. My work focused on increasing the FIC’s capacity to engage neighborhood residents in the design process of the proposed new Transit-Oriented Developments while emphasizing the positive impacts of holistic design on low-income neighborhoods to funders and policy-makers.

List organizations in the building and/or environmental industries you are actively involved in:

I am currently mostly involved with the National Organization of Minority Architects. I am on a community engagement subcommittee where we strategize and lead events to help open the field of design to youth of color. I am also a registered member of the USGBC although I am not actively involved with the organization at the local or federal level other than overseeing our LEED projects. For several years I was on the Board of Directors for the Massachusetts Workforce Alliance until it shut down in 2019. I am also heavily engaged with the IIDA (International Interior Design Association) and BSA (Boston Society of Architects), both of whom work closely with our youth at YouthBuild Boston.

Briefly list your areas of expertise. For example; energy, renewable energy, water, indoor air quality, resiliency, health and wellness:

My areas of expertise are strongest in community engagement, transit-oriented development, workforce development, youth education, and existing buildings. Examples of community engagement ranges from an EPA-funded “Living Roof Bus Shelter Initiative” where I coordinated the installation of living roofs on bus shelters in Dorchester and Hyde Park as a way to engage with people on the street about green infrastructure and teach youth about the installation and care of green roofs (we won a Greenovate Award from Mayor Walsh in 2015 for this) to installing and maintaining rain gardens for the City of Boston’s Parks Department with youth. I’m currently working on an effort with the Boston Society of Architects and Department of Neighborhood Development to form a network of designers and builders for Additional Dwelling Units in the City of Boston. I’m also on several panels working to address racism in the design field, and much more.

Describe any involvement and interactions with Built Environment Plus (USGBC MA) in the past five years:

In all honesty, I have not been heavily involved with BE+ within the past five years. I’ve been to a few meetings and presentations for specific guest speakers and I have engaged with various board members in different ways not related to BE+. However, compared to the various professional organizations and nonprofits that I have worked with over the years, I haven’t felt that the USGBC at the federal or local level has been as deeply involved in social equity efforts (or valued it) as I would have liked. However, it seems that tide is turning, especially after a number of events in 2020 that have impacted all of us at every level, and I would like to become more involved and help amplify that social equity lens for the group.

What will you bring to the Board of Directors?

Although I have likely overused this word by now, I would bring a stronger social equity lens to the Board of Directors. My projects at YouthBuild Boston includes things like renewable energy, water, health and wellness, etc but from a perspective of “Who is doing this work? Who is it being built for? Who is making money before, during, and after the project is completed? Do neighbors outside of the project parcel benefit? Etc..” Having real and serious discussions about diversity, disadvantaged communities, youth, transit, economic struggles, changing populations over time, and infrastructure are all important topics that should be discussed in the same breath as indoor air quality, resiliency, sustainable materials, etc. I’ve always felt LEED is one of the best holistic and achievable guidelines that designers and builders can use, so bringing serious social equity discussions to that larger dialog of resiliency excites me.

Project Manager, Homeowner’s Rehab, Inc.

As a member of HRI’s development team for the past 5.5 years, I’ve worked on several sustainable affordable housing projects at a range of scales and types (new construction, preservation etc.). In addition to my project management experience, I manage the sustainability initiatives within our scattered site portfolio, leveraging funding opportunities, improving material health and quality, and maximizing energy efficiency. I work closely with ABCD and LEAN to fund energy efficiency improvements, and with solar companies to install and monitor both solar PV and solar thermal installations throughout our portfolio. Our developments also incorporate key resiliency measures and prioritize a net zero/minimal carbon footprint design approach.

What is your background in the green building industry?

I’ve received a LEED GA certification and participated in several workshops and conferences related to sustainable and innovative building technology. In my role at HRI, I focus on construction and design during predevelopment and construction management. I’ve lead LEED Platinum gut rehabs, LEED for Homes new construction and occupied rehabs, and Enterprise Green Communities and Passive House development and certification processes. Furthermore, I’ve supported certifications from the Center for Active Design; HRI was CfAD’s first nonprofit partner and our recent Finch Cambridge development is the first affordable multifamily that earned a Fitwel certification. Finally, I co-led tours, events, and panels related to the Finch Cambridge development and it’s resilient, Passive House, and health-oriented approach to design and programming.

List organizations in the building and/or environmental industries you are actively involved in:

USGBC, NeighborWorks, LISC/MACDC, CHAPA and City of Cambridge sustainability and Net Zero task forces/working groups. I’m a co-chair of A Better Cambridge (ABC), advocating for equitable and sustainable development in Cambridge and leading the local movement for transit-oriented, dense, and green housing solutions. I have also participated in the effort to include Passive House and related sustainability standards in DHCD’s QAP for affordable housing funding.

Briefly list your areas of expertise. For example; energy, renewable energy, water, indoor air quality, resiliency, health and wellness:

Renewable energy, indoor air quality (facilitated IAQ monitoring at two large-scale AH developments), healthy building materials, sustainability certifications, active design experience.

Describe any involvement and interactions with Built Environment Plus (USGBC MA) in the past five years:

I’ve attended several Young Professionals events and talks on healthy building materials. I also presented the Auburn Court infill development as an award finalist at the USGBC/BE+ event in the fall of 2019.

What will you bring to the Board of Directors?

I’d be proud to bring the affordable housing development perspective to the BE+ Board. I believe this perspective is essential to ensuring that healthy, high-quality, and sustainable building approaches are accessible to the affordable housing field. HRI and other affordable housing developers are subject to complex financial and regulatory processes that can make innovative and sustainable building technologies especially challenging to pursue – in my role on the BE+ Board, I’d be able to flag key funding concerns and discuss policy opportunities and challenges in the AH field. I could present our innovative solutions to furthering sustainability in affordable housing to date, as well as bring the equity lens to BE+ and the green building movement.

Principal, The Green Engineer, Inc.

I have over ten years of experience working as a Sustainable Design Consultant and LEED Certification Project Manager. I am a licensed architect in MA and practiced architecture for 14 years before transitioning to my position with The Green Engineer, Inc., where I have been since May of 2010. My evolution from architect to sustainable design consultant rose from my passionate interest and concern about the impact of buildings on our environment. As a Principal and one of our firm leaders, my responsibilities include assisting with oversight and management the firm and our employees, coordinating workflow and helping with marketing/business development. I represent the firm at local events, coordinate our hiring process, mentor younger staff, participate on our Strategic Planning committee and am on our company Board of Directors. Additionally, I am a Project Manager providing sustainable design consulting services for a variety of clients on diverse projects at multiple scales.

What is your background in the green building industry?

I have over 10 years of experience collaborating with project teams to design and build sustainable, resilient, energy efficient projects with reduced environmental impact. I have provided guidance on and written Green Building standards for higher educational institutions and private schools. I am managing several projects pursuing LEED, WELL and/or Fitwel Certifications. I am actively continuing to advance my knowledge of Health and Wellness Rating systems and programs. I have engaged with the USGBC/GBCI on the national level. When our firm was engaged as a LEED Certification third-party reviewers for the GBCI, I was our company liaison. I volunteered for two years on the Greenbuild Conference Special Programs Working Group Committee. I take advantage of opportunities to stay current through attending local and national conferences/workshops. I regularly provide local Lunch and Learn workshops including an Introduction to LEED for Healthcare and a workshop specifically focused on the LEED Materials credits.

List organizations in the building and/or environmental industries you are actively involved in:

BE+ – Member
USGBC –Member and LEED AP
IWBI – Member and WELL AP
Center for Active Design – Fitwel Ambassador
ILFI – Member
The Green Engineer, Inc Board member since 2014
Licensed Architect in the State of MA

Briefly list your areas of expertise. For example; energy, renewable energy, water, indoor air quality, resiliency, health and wellness:

I am extremely well versed in multiple LEED rating systems and the particulars of our region’s various municipal Green Building Zoning requirements and ever evolving requirements to support local goals and targets for improved energy efficiency and carbon emissions reductions. I routinely collaborate with project teams on Entitlements and permitting filings at the local and state level and have a strong understanding of the process.

I am particularly knowledgeable about materials transparency and health and wellness requirements. When LEED v4 was released I collaborated with a co-worker and a group of local green building professionals from a variety of disciplines on the issue of integrating the requirements of LEED v4 into project manuals and technical specifications. We still meet up occasionally to further advance our collaboration, discuss LEED v4 lessons learned and draft updates and revisions to our shared documents.

Describe any involvement and interactions with Built Environment Plus (USGBC MA) in the past five years:

I am a member of BE+. Over the years I have participated in and/or attended events and workshops sponsored or provided by BE+ including the annual Building Technology Forum, The Healthy Materials Summits and the Women in Green events.

I have been engaged in the Green Building Training Consortium program for multiple years as both a participant and as a workshop provider. In addition, I have worked with project teams in submitting projects for the awards programs.

What will you bring to the Board of Directors?

To the BE+ Board I bring my passion for Sustainable Design, my years of experience as a leader in our firm and my Board experience as founding member of The Green Engineer, Inc. Board of Directors. I am a participant on our company Strategic Planning sub-committee and currently working with three others to update and improve our Strategic Plan. In addition, I would bring my passion for Sustainable Design, my leadership experience both as a Principal and as a Project Manager and my capacity to collaborate effectively with others. I listen respectfully to the thoughts, opinions and ideas of the team while also sharing my own. I particularly enjoy working collectively to brainstorm and explore suggestions and ideas and/or problem solve to find solutions. My collaborative approach combined with my years as a practicing Sustainable Design Consultant and with my participation on The Green Engineer, Inc Board of Directors and volunteer experience make me an excellent candidate for the BE+ Board.