2024 Chapter News


The NW BCxA Chapter is proud to announce, that we are continuing support for full sponsored membership for any student attending applicable post-secondary educational or apprenticeship programs. The students need to show interest in joining our organization and hopefully this may lead them to pursue a career in our industry. If you have a contact at an educational or apprenticeship program, like your alma mater please provide the following 2024 BCxA NW Chapter Student Sponsorship Notice and notify the board of your outreach by CC'ing the chapter email address bcxa.nwchapter@gmail.com. We would love to help keep these relationships ongoing and support our members and schools simultaneously.

  • 2024 Student Membership Sponsorship Letter (PENDING LINK)

The BCxA NW Chapter is still actively supporting the South Seattle College Sustainable Building Science Technology (SBST) program led by Steve Abercrombie. The program requires 500 hours of on the job training and for anyone who would like to have a 2nd pair of hands for a commissioning project site tasks, with a month's notice, you could be paired with a student to complete your work and help train them. Students come from a variety of backgrounds from the trades to unrelated fields like teaching. Take a look at the course materials and rewatch our 2023 Q3 chapter meeting for a summary presentation on the program.

If you have any questions about the program, would like to train a student on one of your projects, contribute by presenting a topic to students one evening, or would like to support the program through other means, please contact Steve Abercrombie.


The BCxA NW Chapter is still actively supporting the Building Energy and Controls Apprenticeship (BECA) led by Lane Community College's Roger Ebbage. The program requires 2000 hours of on the job training and for anyone who would like to have a 2nd pair of hands for a commissioning project site tasks that helps the student achieve their technical proficiencies. You will be paired with an available student that is in the region of your trainer agent who is responsible for the 1 on 1 training. Students come from a variety of backgrounds from the trades to unrelated fields like teaching. Take a look at the course materials and rewatch our 2022 Q1 chapter meeting for a summary presentation on the program.

This program has been given the green light from the Department of Energy office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy, with $500,000 in funding available for both Trainer (companies) and Apprentices (Students) to pay both tuition, wages, and other applicable costs. This program is also available for your entry level employees who could use educational and technical development, you don't have to wait for a student but can use this as an in-house development program too. The Energy Trust of Oregon also supports this program as it offers up to $10,000 per intern per year for wages if the employer can meet that program's requirements. 

If you have any questions about the program, please contact Roger Ebbage.


Open request from Ryan Stroupe, BCxA California Chapter President: 

Would you, the NW Chapter members, be interested in collaborating with the CA-BCxA chapter on the building commissioning case study presentation series we are developing?

Building Commissioning Case Study Presentation Series

These presentations would feature recently-completed building commissioning projects, and speakers would share best practices and lessons learned from these projects. Ideally we would hold a case study presentation each month as a lunch-and learn and invite BCxA members as well as the general public to attend. Speakers are welcome to present with co-workers or other critical project stakeholders like the building owner, someone from the operations team, or someone from the design/engineering side of the project. Each session would include a 30-45 minute presentation with 15 additional minutes for Q&A. The projects can be new construction commissioning, existing building commissioning, or ongoing commissioning. These trainings will be held as webinars and will be hosted through the PG&E Energy Center.  I am actively looking for volunteers willing to present as part of this series.

Here are some reasons to participate as speakers for this series:

  • This is an opportunity for speakers who share case studies to get free exposure for themselves and their firm. I anticipate 50-75 people will attend these webinars and this will certainly include interested parties from outside of California.
  • This is an opportunity for speakers to develop their presentation skills. As someone who sits on the planning committee for the BCxA national conference, I must emphasize here that commissioning case studies are always well received conference abstract topics, and the planning committee appreciates lining up experienced speakers for the conference.
  • There is a $500 honoraria for each talk through the Energy Center. This will more than cover a nice evening out for you and your significant other.

The Northwest BCxA Chapter has been live on Linkedin, follow the group and stay up to date with the latest info and posts.


BCxA Northwest Committees


Advocacy Subcommittee

Chairs Wesley Hogue and Tim O'Neill, Members Treasa Sweek, Doug Smith, Jerry Burstedt, and John Herboth

The Advocacy Subcommittee is composed of NW BCxA chapter members who volunteer to act on behalf of the Association to:

(a) Identify, evaluate, and track new or revised potential legislation, codes, standards and policies that may affect the practice of building commissioning. 
(b) Actively engaging with legislative and code boards to improve commissioning standards and guidelines.
(c) Educate Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJs) about commissioning in code, our processes, and seek to improve practical enforcement through lessons learned.

If you are interested in being a voice for the commissioning profession and ensuring that the practice of commissioning is accurately represented at city, county, and state levels, please contact Wesley Hogue, Tim O'Neill & Treasa Sweek to see where you could get involved. This could be as little as one hour per quarter to update the subcommittee on what is happening locally in your region so we can pass that information onto the chapter.


Educational and Conference Subcommittee

Chairs Laura Irons and John Herboth

The Educational and Conference subcommittee provides educational content, planning, and coordination for our quarterly chapter meetings and regional conferences. If you have an idea for a topic or have a 45 minute to 1 hour presentation prepared, send it our way for consideration. Presentation abstracts need to be submitted at least 4 weeks in advance of an event to receive continuing education credit approval through BCxA & AIA.

This year we decided to not host another ½ day technical seminar due to the boards bandwidth and available time to commit to producing a quality product for our chapter members. But there are several areas that this committee could use assistance from our chapter members in regards to continuing efforts to bring high quality educational content to our chapter meetings.

(a) Assisting the planning and session content, includes contacting presenters
(b) Assisting or leading in the marketing of the event and reaching out to affiliate industry groups for event promotion or joint events
(c) Assisting in the execution of events

Please contact Laura Irons & John Herboth if you are interested in supporting our chapter meetings, conference, and joint events


Meet-up Subcommittee

Chairs Brian Barks and Jeramy Bromley, Members Tom Gould and John Herboth

Wouldn't it be great to meet more of our members in more casual local events for networking and collaboration over coffee, drinks, or a entertainment event? The pandemic is going anywhere anytime soon, so we need your help to setup Meet Ups throughout the Northwest region in areas where members can congregate.

We would love involvement from members in Idaho, Montana, Hawaii, and Alaska to make this valuable outside of the I-5 corridor. The goal is to make people at all reaches of our chapter borders feel connected to our organization.

If you are interested in getting to know your fellow chapter members and grow your professional network, please contact John Herboth, Brian Barks, Tom Gould, and Jeramy Bromley.


Membership Subcommittee

Chairs Brian Barks and Nathan Aring

The Membership committee strives to continuously improve engagement with our members, students, and engage with our chapter’s non-member partner and affiliate organizations to extend the our network's reach and grow.

The committee is committed to promoting connections in our chapter and outside of it through our shared desire to improve our industry and our willingness to commit our time to make it happen.

If you are interested in getting to know your fellow chapter members and grow your professional network, please contact Brian Barks & Nathan Aring.

Membership Subcommittee “Charter” 

 

BCxA Northwest Chapter Resources


Chapter Election Documents:

For anyone interested in applying to be on the BCxA NW Chapter Board there are 3 open positions yearly. Please fill out a candidate application with all three policy documents for committment, antitrust, and conflict of interest, along with submitting a one page resume, a websized headshot image, and a short statement on why you want to be on the board and how you plan on contributing for inclusion in the electronic ballot that is read by all chapter members. Applicants do not have to be a chapter member on their application submission date but must be by Nov. 1st of that year to be included on the ballot. If you have any questions, please email a chapter board member. All submissions should be sent to Sheri Adam @ sadams@bcxa.org, two chapter board members, and bcxa.nwchapter@gmail.com.  

If anyone has any questions, please get in contact with a board member to discuss board officer and member at large duties, tasks, and time commitments. Typically new board members are not asked to take on officer roles in their first year. Each term is 3 years in length with board members able to serve 2 consecutive terms before being required to take a 1 year break. Please download and review the chapter bylaws to familiarize yourself with our organizational rules.

It is a great way to give back to the organization and as a result you will find both professional and personal growth while you become a leader in our profession regionally.

2024 Chapter Meeting Recordings

  • Q1 Mtg Replacey (Place Holder)
  • Q2 Mtg Replacey (Place Holder)
  • Q3 Mtg Replacey (Place Holder)
  • Q4 Mtg Replacey (Place Holder)

2023 Chapter Meeting Recordings

2022 Chapter Meeting Recordings

2024 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

2023 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

2022 Board of Directors Meeting Minutes


Chapter Bylaws

The Northwest BCxA chapter is currently reviewing our bylaws to update language to fit out current chapter and board meeting practices, update officer duties and roles, and review current board makeup guidelines on participation from individual companies. If you have any suggestions please get in touch with John Herboth.

2018 Revised Bylaws