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What the McKinstry B.L.U.E program taught me: Zach Gerhardt

August 24, 2020 by Leave a Comment

What the McKinstry B.L.U.E program taught me: Zach Gerhardt

How would you describe what you’re doing at McKinstry in 50 words or less?

My role at McKinstry as a Project Engineer Intern is to learn as much as I can, as quickly as I can, in order to help the field team, perform their work on time and under budget.

What has McKinstry been successful in with tackling the challenge of COVID-19 from a company and an intern perspective (i.e. measures taken company wide and measures taken within the B.L.U.E. program)

McKinstry has been successful in tackling the challenge of COVID-19 from a company perspective in the way they have provided the option for employees to work from home for as long as necessary until they feel it is safe to return. For people in New Construction, keeping the number of people in the office down to a small amount to allow for proper social distancing has been a change I have witnessed firsthand. We work in the office on a rotation. I was given the opportunity to work Monday through Wednesday in the field office and the rest of the week at home for the duration of the summer. Being able to split up my area of work was something new to me but has readied me for a new normal with the possibilities of working from home becoming more widespread. I believe in the way McKinstry has afforded its employees the option to work from home until they feel safe in an office. It speaks loudly about how much they care for the wellbeing of their employees.

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Filed Under: B.L.U.E. Blog, Home Tagged With: B.L.U.E., B.L.U.E. Blog, Project Engineering, The B.L.U.E. Experience

What it’s like to be a McKinstry Intern in Seattle: Michael Kinahan

August 20, 2020 by Leave a Comment

What it’s like to be a McKinstry Intern in Seattle: Michael Kinahan

How would you describe what you do at McKinstry in 50 words or less?

“One of the jobs I’ve spent a lot of time on this summer is the New Convention Center in Seattle. It is an enormous project, it’s so big that they had to split up construction into five different zones. What you can see in the picture is just the beginning of zone one!”

I help assist foremen and project managers oversee the instillation of Fire Suppression Systems in mid- to high-rise buildings in the greater Seattle area.

How is the internship different due to the impacts of COVID-19?

The most obvious impact of COVID-19 on my work experience has been the empty office that greets me every morning. The sea of vacant desks leaves me to only be able to speculate as to the energy that once filled the now empty Dawson building. Another obvious impact of COVID-19 has been the lack of in-person interactions I have with my coworkers. There are a handful that I work with every day, that I have never met in person. And the only reference I have as to what they look like is their Microsoft Teams profile picture. While this might have been a steep transition for some of my coworkers, I would venture to guess that the transition was quite seamless for most of my fellow interns, as much of our communication is online already. I also think that it has, in some respects, hindered the amount that I network with my fellow interns and coworkers. While I have had a couple “coffee chats” with a few people in my internship cohort, I have had minimal individual interaction with my peers. However, our internship director, Bri Kastning, has done a phenomenal job setting up as many networking events for our cohort as possible. Unfortunately, there is just no suitable replacement for face-to-face interaction.

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Filed Under: B.L.U.E. Blog, Home Tagged With: B.L.U.E., B.L.U.E. Blog, Seattle, The B.L.U.E. Experience

Ask an Intern: Tyler Pritchard

August 17, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Ask an Intern: Tyler Pritchard

How would you describe what you are doing at McKinstry in 50 words or less?

“Me and fellow intern, Claire McGahern, doing some socially distant Social Quiztancing with the Golden Office”

At McKinstry, I develop energy conservation measure (ECM) calculations to help inform whether specific ECMs are included in larger energy performance contracts (EPCs). To date, I have worked on three ECM calculations: energy savings from heat pump installation, demand savings from thermal energy storage installation, and cost savings from fleet vehicle fuel conversion.

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Filed Under: B.L.U.E. Blog, Home Tagged With: B.L.U.E., B.L.U.E. Blog, The B.L.U.E. Experience

Michael Kinahan: Getting to know me & my journey to McKinstry’s B.L.U.E. Program

July 16, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Michael Kinahan: Getting to know me & my journey to McKinstry’s B.L.U.E. Program

Hello fellow interns, McKinstry employees, and random people who stumbled along this blog by chance!

My name is Michael Kinahan, and I am a first-year intern in the Major’s Fire Protection Department. This fall, I will be a Junior at Washington State University entering my first year in the Construction Management Program. My goal in writing for the Blue Blog this summer is to give past, present, and future interns a glance into my internship at McKinstry during these chaotic and unprecedented times.

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Filed Under: B.L.U.E. Blog, Home Tagged With: B.L.U.E., B.L.U.E. Blog, Fire Protection, Seattle, The B.L.U.E. Experience

Lexie Bright: Getting to know me & my journey to McKinstry’s B.L.U.E. Program

July 14, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Lexie Bright: Getting to know me & my journey to McKinstry’s B.L.U.E. Program

Hello, my name is Lexie Bright, I’m a 23-year-old recent graduate from Western Washington University. I majored in Energy Policy and Management with a minor in Economics. I’m currently a Technical Services Intern with the Energy Management and Technical Services team at McKinstry based in Seattle, WA.

I was raised in the beautiful foothills of Issaquah, WA. Growing up, I had no awareness of conservation, where my water came from, what electricity was or why it mattered to know. As I became more educated about Climate Change and the reality of how our modern lives are made possible through exploiting the Earth, I couldn’t believe it. I began focusing on how I could educate and influence as many people as possible about environmental realities, hoping to inform and even convert them into environmental activists.

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Filed Under: B.L.U.E. Blog, Home Tagged With: Active Energy Management, B.L.U.E., B.L.U.E. Blog, Seattle, Technical Services, The B.L.U.E. Experience

Tyler Pritchard: Getting to know me & my journey to McKinstry’s B.L.U.E. Program

July 13, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Tyler Pritchard: Getting to know me & my journey to McKinstry’s B.L.U.E. Program

Currently, I am entering my fifth year at the Colorado School of Mines, pursuing a major in mechanical engineering with minors in energy and public affairs. Having been born in Edmonds, Wash., I was quite shaken by the move to Colorado. The air is so much thinner, the flora is so much drier, and the people are so much more…outdoorsy. Beer is a really big thing here. Oceans are not. Even the Coloradan flag is more cheerful than its Washingtonian peer. Regardless, I found my place in Colorado riding bikes, researching fuel cells, leading Mines Sustainability, and camping in the Rocky Mountains whenever possible.

Since that first jarring transition, I have gone on to bike across the Rockies twice, work as an intern for Senator Chris Hanson at the Colorado State Capitol, play piano on KUVO in Denver, and begin working on the techno-economic analysis of methane synthesis using proton-conducting electrolyzer cells. All the while, I also developed my appreciation for environmentally conscious and human-centered engineering.

During my first year  at Mines, I developed a fascination with the interactions between people, their built environment, and the natural environment. But, as a first-year student, I sat through classes where proficiency and cunning were proven through a talent with numbers and the ability to solve unfamiliar technical problems. There was rarely any consideration for how these numbers on the page translated to environmental or human health beyond. But, it was these  nagging questions — “Where does the exhaust go?,”  “What happens when nitrogen levels are this high?” —  that got me interested in human-centered design and energy engineering. And, this passion and curiosity are precisely what brought me to McKinstry.

My prior internship experiences, experimental fuel cell research and policy research at the Colorado State Capitol, have both given me a taste of academia and policy. But, prior to this summer, I still lacked any substantive experience in industry. Thus, I knew that I wanted to work in industry this summer. Furthermore, I aspire to become an elected official one day. And, during my time in politics, I noticed that one of the greatest shortcomings of our current elected officials is their lack of tangible knowledge regarding how sustainability is realized in a modern capitalist society. These officials do not understand what it takes to carry out a $4.5 billion lighting retrofit, nor do they understand what financing mechanisms tip solar from being economically favorable to being a waste of time and resources. Fearing I would also succumb to such blissful ignorance, I was further motivated to pursue an internship in industry.

Earlier this year, I had many ideas for who I’d like to work for this summer: Stantec, HDR, Siemens. But, in the back of my mind, I always knew that my dream would be to end up at McKinstry.  From McKinstry’s powerED campaign at Mines, I picked up on the dedication to upgrading facilities whilst also encouraging cultures to be more sustainable. Between powerED’s Shut the Sash campaign to its People.Power.Planet pledge page, I fell in love with McKinstry’s holistic approach to sustainability. And from there, I realized that McKinstry was exactly where I needed to be. No place combined my desire to experience industry and champion sustainability more wholly than McKinstry.


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Filed Under: B.L.U.E. Blog, Home Tagged With: B.L.U.E., B.L.U.E. Blog, Energy, Mountain Regions, powerED

Mission: Possible – Safe, efficient, just-in-time delivery

May 14, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Mission: Possible – Safe, efficient, just-in-time delivery

At McKinstry, our mission is to make every building we touch more efficient. “Mission: Possible” is a monthly series featuring people and projects around the country that demonstrate our mission in action.

Working efficiently is nothing new at McKinstry. We have long believed that half the labor in a construction project is wasted and have been on a mission to drive efficiency into our work for years – everything from developing standard processes and adapting technology that streamlines our work to providing just-in-time delivery.

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Filed Under: Big Ideas, Home, Technology

Return to Work with Confidence – A Water Systems Perspective

May 12, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Return to Work with Confidence – A Water Systems Perspective
Empty corporate office

By Larry Mayotte, Operations Manager, Service

Building owners and facility managers are diligently preparing their plans to reoccupy buildings that have been under-utilized or sat empty for weeks or months. In their efforts to ensure occupants can safely return to the workplace, they are tuning up their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and implementing physical distancing and other protocol to mitigate the spread of COVID-19.

One area that is often overlooked but is just as critical to safely reopening a building, is a building’s water system (potable, non-potable, cooling towers, evaporative HVAC equipment). Most building owners and operators don’t typically have to deal with health risks from these systems. But, in buildings that have low or no use for extended periods of time, there is significant risk of bacteria such as legionella building up. This build-up puts occupants at risk of exposure to Pontiac Fever, an acute nonfatal respiratory disease, or Legionnaires Disease, a type of pneumonia caused by inhaling bacteria from water and the deadliest waterborne disease in the United States.

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Filed Under: Home, Occupants & Operators

Return to Work with Confidence – An HVAC Perspective

May 7, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Return to Work with Confidence – An HVAC Perspective
Woman unlocks office door with a key.

By Michael Frank, Vice President, Engineering and Design

Many people are wondering what it will look like when we all return to work in buildings that have been mostly vacant for weeks, and in some cases months. There are a lot of conversations happening and articles being written about occupant density, and I imagine seating layouts will never look quite the same.

How about the HVAC and plumbing systems that have been put into a holiday schedule or turned off for this same time period? How do we get them ready so our employees can return with confidence? Once they are ready, and employees start returning in a staged occupancy, how should we operate them and what should we be thinking about? There is a lot of research and reporting being done on the role of an HVAC system in keeping us safe, or potentially spreading the novel coronavirus.

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Filed Under: Home, Occupants & Operators

Negative airflow is a positive at this Northwest hospital

April 29, 2020 by Leave a Comment

Negative airflow is a positive at this Northwest hospital
UW Medicine Northwest Hospital

By Geremy Wolff, Regional Director – Technical Services

At McKinstry, our mission is to make every building we touch more efficient. “Mission: Possible” is our series featuring people and projects around the country that demonstrate our mission in action.

Sometimes efficiency looks different from how we typically think of it. When McKinstry announced our mission to make every building we touch more efficient, we didn’t know we would be soon facing a pandemic. In one Seattle hospital, efficiency has come to mean re-configuring the HVAC equipment to minimize the spread of infection and keep the frontline healthcare workers and patients safe.

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Filed Under: Better Buildings, Home, Occupants & Operators

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Recent Posts

  • What Makes McKinstry Different? by Tyler Pritchard
  • What the McKinstry B.L.U.E program taught me: Zach Gerhardt
  • Intern Q&A: Lexie Bright
  • What it’s like to be a McKinstry Intern in Seattle: Michael Kinahan
  • How COVID-19 changed my Internship: Nolan Dahl

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