Robert Croom and David Stuart at BAS V.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

As 2016 comes to an end, the team at BEST Center would like to wish you a very warm and Happy Holiday season. We look forward to seeing your faces in mid-January for our Annual Institute. Until then, here’s an update on what’s happening:
 

Welcome, Victor Garcia!

Please help us welcome Victor Garcia, MPA, Ed.D., our new Coordinator. Victor has over 10 years of experience in program administration with community colleges, CSU and UC systems. Most recently he has been a consultant to educational and philanthropic organizations like the Marin Community Foundation and the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Enrichment Program. Victor is bringing a lot of expertise in program administration which will assist the BEST Center in managing its activities and College Network.
 

Our Annual Institute is Coming! 

Our annual gathering of members is right around the corner, Jan 11-14, 2017 to be precise. The theme is “Learning by Doing in Building Technician Education: New Technologies, Teaching Strategies, and Lab Applications,” and we are planning hands-on activities, tours, and sessions to support it. We are almost at capacity but the deadline to apply has been extended till Thursday, Dec 15 at 5pm PT. Read more.
 

Webinar: ACE Mentor – Building Pathways from High School to College 

On January 26, 2017 will we host our next webinar that will feature the ACE Mentor Program. Providing after-school activities supported by volunteers from the design and construction industry, ACE Mentor’s mission is to engage, excite and enlighten high school students to pursue careers in architecture, construction, engineering, and the building trades. This webinar will highlight how community and technical colleges can get involved with local ACE high school teams to promote the building trades and  pathways to certificate and associate degree programs; stay tuned for more info. Register here. 
 

New HPBOP Training in January 2017 at Laney College, Oakland

BEST Center has teamed up with SoCal Edison and Building Owners and Managers Association of California (BOMA California) to kick-off an exciting 12-session High Performance Building Operations Professionals training for in-state building engineers and technicians. Emphasis will be on lab-focused exercises that help prepare participants to manage their own buildings to become high performance facilities of the future. If you know individuals who might qualify for this training, please share this newsletter and encourage them to register on the BEST Center website. Read more.

Take a Virtual Lab Tour

Virtual lab videos from GA Piedmont Technical College, College of DuPage and Lane Community College are now available for viewing. If you would like to see the lab spaces, equipment and how they all translate to curriculum, then spend some time soaking in the technical details and teaching philosophies provided by BEST Network members Jeryll McWhorter, Bob Clark, Bruce Alford, and Josh Manders.
 

Equipment and Software Discounts

In collaboration with industry leaders, BEST Center is pleased to extend discounts for equipment and software licenses to our members developing instructional labs. Automated Logic, Honeywell, Siemens and Triatek have all agreed to offer 40% (in some cases more) off their list prices to educational members of BEST Center. Be sure to give a shout out to our awesome industry leaders! Read more.

News to share?

Please add info@bestctr.org to your email lists so we are in the loop on news in your programs.

Contact Us

As always, please contact us if you are in need of support and/or resources to advance your HVAC and building automation programs.

“This one trend, climate change, affects all trends.”

– U.S. President Barack Obama, December 1, 2015, at the COP21 conference in Paris. He continued to say “If we let the world keep warming as fast as it is and sea levels rising as fast as they are, and weather patterns keep shifting in more unexpected ways, then before long we are going to have to devote more and more and more of our economic and military resources not to growing opportunity for our people, but to adapting to the various consequences of a changing planet.”

From a recent message from the US Dept of Energy:

“In March of 2016, the U.S. Department of Energy released the agency’s first annual analysis of how changes in America’s energy profile are affecting national employment in multiple energy sectors. The report provides a broad view of the national current energy employment landscape and can provide community college faculty, administration and staff, with a clearer picture of how changes in energy technology, systems, and usage are affecting the economy and creating or displacing jobs in the nation and in their region. This includes trends in projected job growth and industry hiring difficulty that can potentially translate into job and career opportunities for students as well as provide useful data for workforce development, and course creation.”

U.S. Energy and Employment Report 2016

We will post the 2017 report when it is made available in early 2017.

BEST Center members developing their own instructional labs will enjoy a virtual tour of the labs at College of DuPage and Lane Community College. Joining the Georgia Piedmont Technical College lab video, these new videos will give you a sense of COD’s micro-sized commercial “building” lab concept and LCC’s “A Building the Teaches” living lab concept. Check out our Instructional Labs for the videos and more information.

BEST Center Building at Laney College

There’s a new building currently under construction at Laney College that will bear the BEST Center name. Lots of progress has been made since the groundbreaking in February 2016.  View the progress first hand when you join us for the 2017 Annual Institute.

From the February announcement:

Both Test Houses are designed to reflect typical conditions encountered in market-rate housing and the Classroom will meet rigorous “Passivhaus” standards; aiming to achieve Net Zero Energy, meaning that it must produce as much energy as its systems consume. Environmentally beneficial features include harvesting of rainwater for gardens; windows and roof vents that provide natural ventilation; windows located to maximize daylight & views; solar technologies; efficiencies in mechanical and HVAC systems; and many others.

Notably, this building, is designed to achieve a LEED Platinum certification , and perhaps will be the first classroom in California to meet Passive House standards. It is also designed to meet and exceed standards for zero-net energy design, using building-integrated photovoltaic panels.

27 College Faculty from Around the Nation Learn about Advancements in Lab Design and Exercises

June 11, 2016 – ATLANTA – BEST Center, a National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Center, and Georgia Piedmont Technical College, both leaders in building automation systems (BAS) education, convened faculty from around the country for the semi-annual Building Automation Systems Workshop.

Now in its fifth installment, the BAS Workshop convened 27 faculty and program administrators from 23 technical and community colleges from around the U.S. for a four-day workshop about laboratory development best practices. The workshop featured speakers from GPTC staff and student graduates, Siemens national and regional executives, Laney College and BEST Center. It covered topics such as the connection between labs and curriculum, subnetwork wiring, BACnet MS/TP installation, lab building experiences, and development of train-the-trainer sites. Participants came from Oregon, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, and Florida, among many others and convened at the beautiful Georgia Piedmont Conference Center and BAS laboratory in Clarkston, GA.

“By demand, this year’s workshop was designed to assist colleges that are planning to build or enhance BAS instructional laboratories by providing recommendations on everything from garnering administration support to partnering with industry to lab design concepts for optimal student learning”, said Brian Lovell, Co-Principal Investigator, BEST Center and event organizer. “Each presentation delved into different aspects of setting up a lab and was paired with hands on exercises to demonstrate best practices and industry expectations.”

“Our workshop enables colleges to plan and build laboratory environments that mimic likely real-world scenarios so college graduates are career ready”, said Peter Crabtree, Principal Investigator for BEST Center and Career and Technical Education Dean, Laney College. “High functioning labs are the key ingredient to successful deployments of a well-trained workforce prepared to monitor, maintain and improve buildings for energy efficiency.”

“Georgia Piedmont is a leader in providing affordable pathways to high demand, high paying careers. This BAS workshop with the BEST Center is the latest example in our continued commitment to our students to be a model in the industry and for colleges around the country, not to mention a necessary resource for the Greater Atlanta community”, said Dr. Jabari Simama, Georgia Piedmont’s President.

“This workshop was the result of significant work and time by Georgia Piedmont’s building automation faculty and the BEST Center team.  It is one of the major examples of how successful partnerships between community/technical colleges and industry partners can result in providing relevant and vibrant learning experiences for current and future students. Georgia Piedmont is proud to be on the cutting edge of instruction in the building automation area,” stated Dr. Ivan Harrell, Executive Vice President of Academic & Student Affairs at Georgia Piedmont.

About BEST Center

The Building Efficiency for a Sustainable Tomorrow (BEST) Center supports publicly funded 2- and 4-year colleges with programs in heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC/R), building automation controls, and energy/facilities management. Sponsored by ATE grants from the National Science Foundation, this national collaborative promotes state-of-the-art building technician education and dissemination of the latest research, technology, and industry collaborations in energy efficient buildings. Technical and community college faculty in HVAC and building automation programs are encouraged to join the BEST Center’s Network of Colleges.

About Georgia Piedmont Technical College

Established in 1961, Georgia Piedmont Technical College (GPTC) is one of the top technical colleges in Georgia.  As a student-centered institution, GPTC prepares individuals with the skills necessary to succeed in a rapidly changing, global economy.  GPTC’s graduation rate is more than 63 percent, and its graduates secure employment at a level resulting in a 97.3 percent placement rate. The college has 12 learning centers in DeKalb, Newton, Rockdale and Morgan counties. Georgia Piedmont Technical College is an equal access/equal opportunity institution and does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, color, marital status, age, religion, national origin, ethnicity, pregnancy, disability, veteran’s status, sexual orientation, or genetic information. Contact the ADA Coordinator at 404/297-9522, ext. 1154, petersl@gptc.edu or the Title IX Coordinator at 404/297-9522, ext. 1176, gordond@gptc.edu for assistance.

www.bestctr.org

www.gptc.edu

www.nsf.gov/ate

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