BE+ is thrilled to announce this game-changing addition to our growing team, and if you don’t already know her—all you have to do is read her powerful introduction letter to see why. Welcome Allison!!!

I am excited to share that I have joined Built Environment Plus (BE+) as the new Education Director. I am responsible for managing all things education at BE+ including virtual and in-person trainings, strategic educational events, and the Workforce Training Fund General Program and Express Program. Keep your eye out too for new educational offerings, comprehensive training and certificate programs, and the next evolution of the Green Building Leadership Institute.

I am not sure about you but the past two years have left me exhausted and wondering what is next. Wondering what the world will look like post-pandemic. Wondering how we will navigate the changes in our personal and professional lives that have resulted from a world turned upside-down. Wondering how our lives and work will evolve in the future. One thing we cannot deny is that health and wellness, sustainability, and social equity and justice are rightfully no longer on the fringes. This is a time of great opportunity for us in the sustainability and building sector. Just do a web search for ‘sustainability jobs’ to see how much of what we do is in demand. How we design, build, and occupy our buildings, landscapes, and communities is in the forefront. How we do our work and how we work together is just as important as what we create.

What this means for me in my new role as Education Director is that I can use all that I know and all I have learned working for the past 17 years as a sustainability consultant, and prior to that as a designer and architect, to make an even greater positive impact in our field and in the world. I am proud of the strategic, forward thinking, environmentally and socially responsible work I have done to date including all the projects I have worked on with many of you. I have helped organizations develop sustainability initiatives and internal corporate practices, trained staff and team members, led multi-disciplinary teams to earn green building certifications on projects, and sorted through all the green building requirements and national, state, and local energy and sustainable development codes and regulations. In the past, I was a member of the USGBC Education Development & Training Committee, consulted on a USGBC board working group to assist in developing LEED rating system language, and was a GBCI Certification Reviewer.

I first began my involvement with the BE+ community in 2008 while it was the local USGBC Affiliate as part of the Green Roundtable, then as the Massachusetts Membership Forum, then as the US Green Building Council MA Chapter and ultimately as Built Environment Plus. Since then, I have attended events and trainings, taught courses, volunteered on the green building tour committee for Greenbuild Boston, and most recently volunteered as the chair for the BE+ Women in Green Roundtable.

Above all else, I am proud of and value the relationships I have in our community with colleagues, project teams, and organizations I have worked with. I look forward to continuing the trajectory of my past work while building new relationships with those of you I have yet to work with. I see great new opportunities for us to further advance sustainability in the built environment.

What this means for you is that you now have an Education Director. I can help you enhance your current employee training program, or if you don’t currently have a staff member managing education for your company, I can help you figure out your training needs and devise a training plan. We can choose individual courses for your staff or we can plan a curriculum over an extended period of time. You may not realize the breadth of courses that BE+ offers. As expected, for a green building organization, we offer technical courses covering topics such as energy codes, decarbonization, healthy materials, building science fundamentals, LEED, WELL, and Passive House. BE+ also offers software courses, and leadership, team building, and change management courses. In most cases, we can connect you to state funding that covers between 50% – 100% of the course cost for your Massachusetts employees.

Want to learn more? Check out the BE+ website for an updated course training catalog and a list of current courses open for registration, and for information on the grant programs. Attend our monthly roundtables to explore specific issues and topic areas. 

We are working on a BE+ monthly education newsletter as a simple resource to keep you updated on available courses, instructors, partners, and funding. If you are interested in being added to the upcoming education newsletter, sign up here.

Keep in touch. Reach out to me and the BE+ team with any questions you have. In this exciting, hopeful, thought-provoking world, let’s keep learning, supporting, and inspiring each other. Knowing you all are here working together doing this important and challenging work motivates me.

Allison Zuchman
Education Director
Built Environment Plus