Last Wednesday, part of the CEC Commercial Conservation Services team ventured down to PSE headquarters in Bellevue, WA, for the annual RCM meeting. RCMs are Resource Conservation Managers, energy management professionals that work with school districts, government agencies and commercial or industrial customers, to help them reduce energy and resource use and cut costs.
Although RCMs generally focus on managing a single larger customer, the CEC’s Commercial Conservation Services team has its own RCM, Martin Selch, to help the 230+ businesses participating in the Community Energy Challenge get the support and expertise they need to cut back on energy use. In general, the RCM approach has mostly overlooked the small business sector because the savings per business can be relatively minor and it is hard to justify a dedicated employee to manage their energy use. The CEC decided to take an innovative approach in applying the RCM model to a large group of small businesses to attempt to achieve aggregate savings on par with the savings that a large institution, such as a university, achieves when it adopts a comprehensive energy saving strategy.
For a bit of fun, at every annual RCM meeting PSE awards the RCMmys (R.C. Emmy, get it?), a shiny gold trophy to recognize and reward those RCMs who have performed admirably in a variety of categories. In 2011 the Community Energy Challenge’s Martin Selch was awarded the RCMmy for best Facility Action Plan, and this year we were proud to take home the 2013 RCMmy for Database Management. The trophy is now sitting proudly on our database manager, Nancy Orlowski’s, desk. Rock on, Nancy!
“Here to present the 2013 RCMmy for Excellence in Database Management is someone who knows data better than I know my own mother, Vince Kammeyer, Senior Business Support Analyst on PSE’s Building Performance Team.”
Vince:
“Data management is second nature to me. I see .csv files and tabular columns of random numbers in my sleep. If you think you have what it takes to win in this category, then you probably do. Pay attention to that data, because it wants to be your friend! Without further ado, I am pleased to announce this year’s nominees.”
Vince:
“The SC team are excellent at communicating UM adds for new sites & accounts, and completing UM maintenance tasks accurately. They also let me know when sites/accounts/meters are no longer needed for UM & EIS, and they are super-nice & fun to work with!”
