Duthu has enjoyed a long history of sustainable energy design that dates back to ccrd partners’ origin in 1980 as Texas Energy Engineers, Incorporated.

This highly specialized energy team will provide a hub of resources for the company’s commercial, institutional and industrial clients. Under Duthu’s leadership the dedicated energy group will continue to focus on innovative solutions for its clients’ energy needs.

“As demonstrated on projects such as the LEED® Platinum Certified Dell Children’s Medical Center and the award winning Phoenix Children’s Hospital and Central Plant, ccrd will continue to enhance our position in sustainable energy design and further develop our design of innovative systems through ccrd Energy” notes Rick Rome, PE, President of ccrd.

ccrd Energy will focus on researching new technologies and applications for energy consuming systems design; gathering operational and economic metrics to help shape the design decisions for our clients and projects; and providing an educational medium to advance the industry through energy analysis into a more sustainable standard of practice.

 “We at ccrd continue to renew our focus on the company’s original formation premise, to provide innovative and energy efficient design solutions for our clients. This premise has fostered the company’s growth and allowed ccrd to establish itself as a unique engineering consulting firm for 31 years” explains Duthu, a founding partner of ccrd. “As stated in our original brochure from 1981, ‘We will assist our clients in a way that ensures important exchange of ideas while maximizing utilization of capital and asset management.’”

 The core of ccrd Energy is comprised of our highly experienced staff of professional engineers and asset managers led by David B. Duthu, PE and supported by: Paulina Diaz, PE; Shaun Grimm, PE; Richard Hopkins, PE; and Dylan McWhirter.

About ccrd partners
ccrd is an industry leading mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering design and commissioning firm with offices across the United States. Established in 1980, with a goal to provide innovative and technically advanced engineering and energy solutions for complex facilities, the firm has over 150 highly skilled professionals and support staff. ccrd partners has offices in Austin, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, Nashville, Phoenix, Richmond and Washington D.C. ccrd provides engineering services throughout the United States and abroad.

Contact:
Bruce Kester
Associate Principal
ccrd partners
512.697.8755
brucek@ccrd.com

By Bruce Kester, Associate Principal, ccrd partners

USGBC GreenBuild was attended by approximately 24,000 people who traveled to Toronto, Canada, in early October, and experienced both Canadian hospitality and one of the more significant industrial collections of “green” exhibitions of the modern building industry.

ccrd’s Jeff Black and Bruce Kester, attended and presented during the “Education Series” at this year’s conference. The presentation was titled “Persistently Platinum,” which chronicled a five-year history of energy performance trials and tribulations at the only operational LEED® Platinum Hospital in the United States, Dell Children’s Medical Center of Central Texas, located in Austin, Texas. Approximately 500 USGBC members attended the presentation, all of whom seemed to be a “choir” to the shared experiences of “high performance buildings” systems design, installation and start up. Click here to view presentation.

While numerous new ideas were discussed and many points of view shared during the conference, the concept of market transformation and environmental assessment continued to be the common theme. The LEED mantra remains, “leadership true to the following goals.”

• Reverse contribution to climate change
• Enhance human health and well being
• Protect and restore water resources
• Protect biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Promote sustainable and regenerative resource cycles
• Build a greener economy
• Enhance community, social equity, environmental justice and quality of Life

The building industry tension that surrounds LEED ratings is the driving force that endorses leadership by example which in turn elicits change. So, how does one create more change…by creating more tension? Irrespective of the intention, the tension levels are going up with the introduction of LEED 2012. The LEED steering committee provided insight into the reasoning and intent behind the changes being discussed during the comment period prior to the official launch of LEED 2012.

The LEED 2012 standard is an evolution of best practices to address sustainability. LEED must continuously improve to drive change and transform the market. LEED itself is attempting to be transitional and continue to lead the construction industry by promoting:

• Integrated Design Process – considered the best resource for improvement of sustainability. To benefit the design development of the “built environment” it is recognized that the sharing of silo information at the most critical time in a project life is most effective.

• Water and Energy Conservation – from the original creation of water reduction, it was apparent that there had been oversight of the primary drivers of water use in buildings. This has been corrected with new emphasis put on cooling towers and potable water use for production processes.

• Performance, Performance, Performance – if LEED means leadership in Energy Performance, then LEED 2012 provides the recipe to garner the proof. LEED 2012 intensifies the collection of proof using metering and ultimately reporting results or proof. LEED 2012 introduces the future standard of Energy Utilization Index as the basic premise of performance and therefore the future of the standard of Energy Excellence.

(Please note: there are many other points of change, but for MEP engineers these seemed most relevant to our industry)

LEED 2012 is shifting to a performance-based structure that supports recertification and raises the bar to maintain LEED as a leadership tool.

At the heart of LEED high performance design is commissioning. Commissioning, which was the most detested prerequisite by some in the early days, has become a mainstream component of a LEED project. LEED 2012 expands the scope of Building Commissioning from Design Phase and now includes the building envelope, water use reduction and IAQ performance, and preparation of the building operators for the intended operation of building systems. Credits are now available for project teams that implement a “Measurement and Verification” program based on their EA “Optimize Energy Performance” baseline performance

“Commissioning is doing the most to bring about the biggest changes in the construction industry,” said the moderator of the LEED 2012 Steering Committee presentation. He also made this observation of his peers, “If we had not been doing LEED we would really be doing Commissioning.”

So here we go, get ready, the bar has been raised, “Quit looking ahead to yesterday,” that was the easy stuff.

By providing a superior level of engineering expertise, along with exceptional client satisfaction the small firm with only two stockholders has evolved into a nationally recognized engineering firm with 21 stockholders and ten offices nationwide.

ccrd has designed and commissioned some of the most complex and largest healthcare, laboratories and corporate resiliency projects in the world. Many of these projects present novel, ‘one off’ design solutions for our clients. This history of complex project services demonstrates ccrd’s unique approach to engineering i.e., virtually an artistic endeavor. The confidence in our approach and the high acumen of staff has allowed ccrd to continue to evolve and enhance our engineering services. It is with and through these exceptional projects, ccrd continues to grow and transition with an expanded ownership. Hence, a change in the ‘portrait and image’ of ccrd.

Several months ago we embarked on refining the ccrd image and are now ready to share. The new logo and website offer a fresh, creative and exciting glimpse into the future of ccrd. We excel in innovative solutions for technologically demanding buildings by adding right-brain passion to left-brain precision.

Rick Rome, PE