Guest Speaker - Jerry Burbridge

January 12, 2013

Jerry is a project manager with experience in commercial leasing and ground-up construction.  He works for the Cherokee Nation and is assigned to the Department of Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection.  At this position, he has worked on lawyer offices, forensic labs, border patrol offices, and on many other building projects.  He discussed Energy Star, LEED, and Labs21, which is a voluntary program focused on improving the environmental quality of laboratories.

Jerry discussed his current task of standardizing office space planning for federal government buildings, an important issue considering the government does not want to expand their footprint.  The federal government is looking to incorporate more teleworking within its various departments and this will definitely allow for space saving.  He is determining the amount of office space needed for workers based on job descriptions, not on grade.  He stated that 3,000 square feet of savings equates to $160,000 savings and 132 metric tons of CO₂ are saved per year.

Here is a video about how teleworking is creating a more sustainable and efficient federal government.

 

 

The video below is the first 10 minutes of a great PBS special entitled "Greening the Federal Government."  The full episode can be see here.