Chicago My Kind of Town and SMPS Build Business 2011 My Kind of Place

I recently returned from my first SMPS National Conference in Chicago. My one word description WOW!!

As a fist time attendee I came away suitably impressed.  Past years I have told both Adam Kilbourne and Mike Totsch I really did not have the time to spend two or three days at this type of conference, after all we have two people attending already. Boy was I wrong. This absolutely was time well spent, each day was packed with opportunities to network with a variety of  professionals, attend and participate in very informative learning opportunities and perhaps most importantly have the opportunity to observe, support and gain a greater appreciation for all the hard work our marketing and business development staff does for Tec.

Proudly Tec was prominently represented at the beginning, middle and end of the conference.  Wednesday morning the conference kicked off with Adam and his two co-authors Holly Bolton and Dana Galvin presenting their White Paper, “The Client’s Use of Social Media and Social Networking” to a packed  house of fellow CPSM’s. 

Thursday evening at the Gala Reception Mike, last year’s Chapter President of the Year, had the pleasure of introducing Alison Carney of the Washington DC Chapter as this year’s Chapter President of the Year. It was a great speech by Mike and a tremendous honor for Alison. In true leadership fashion Alison humbly deferred much of the success for the growth of the Chapter to her Board and members.  Finally the very last session of the day Friday when many attendees had visions of the conference closing reception and the SMPS Chicago Social Event at the Merchandise Mart later in the evening, the BD Live session in the Michigan Room attracted 35 or 40 richly rewarded attendees. The client, Edward Gervain from Adventist Health System, was perfect and up to the task, the four BD professionals Kenda Salisbury, Barbara Stiles, Laurie Buckman, and Mike Totsch were superb. (Although in my obviously unbiased opinion Mike was superb-plus). This presentation was thought provoking, informative and hilariously funny, all-in-all 75 minutes well spent.

Not having the time to attend has become less of an issue. I may not be able to attend every year however I did leave Chicago looking forward to Build Business 2012 Take Action in San Francisco next July.

SMPS Build Business 2011 - The Bottom Line

Just returned from Chicago where the SMPS National Conference was held last week.  This year’s conference featured 5 client panels covering healthcare, higher education, federal government, international markets, and infrastructure.  Clients participating in these panels had more than $5 billion in new work to discuss!  Great keynote addresses by Scott McKain and Hilari Fordwich really provided food for thought.  Overall a great conference in a great city!  Tec was proud to support the conference.

Tec Inc. Plays in SMPS Columbus Golf Outing

The SMPS Columbus Golf Outing on Monday, August 8th was a great success.  Tec was a corporate sponsor,  providing us the opportunity to play with "celebrity" golfer, Keith Russell - System Director, Real Estate Finance at OhioHealth.  Our team consisted of Terry Kilbourne, Tim Pool, Adam Kilbourne and special guest Holly Bolton from CE Solutions, Inc. in Indiana.

Team TecOur team didn't play all that well, but we really enjoyed the day. Wedgewood Country Club is a fantastic golf course, and the weather was great.  We had our share of excellent shots, but unfortunately had a larger share of not so excellent shots.

The SMPS Columbus Golf Outing raises money to donate to charity. This year the donation will go to Kids 'n Kamp, A Lifeline of Support for Families Touched by Childhood Cancer.

Tec is proud to support this event and looks forward to next year.

Taylor, The New Intern

Taylor working in the archivesMy name is Taylor and I am a recent addition to the Tec Inc. office. I am currently a junior at Bowling Green State University, majoring in Nursing. Having said that, many people wonder what I am doing in a building full of mechanical/electrical engineers and designers. Well, I kind of just fell into this job with no idea of what I was getting myself into and I am very thankful for this opportunity. My first day here I was so nervous for no reason because it turned out that everyone was very friendly, welcoming and patient with me. Thank you so much, by the way!

Before this, I had no experience working in an office setting and barely even understood what HVAC meant or all the work that goes into it. I have never even thought to look up at the lighting in a restaurant or wonder why the toilets aren’t working in a building, but I have been here for 2 weeks and I have already learned a lot from the basics on a computer (copying and pasting warning labels) to the meaning of LEED certification. You’d also be surprised what kind of other things you can learn in an hour lunch with a bunch of engineers.

In all, I have enjoyed my time here very much so far. Although I am leaving for school in 2 weeks, I definitely plan on coming back for the Holidays and help try to get this place organized! ;)

LED's and the upcoming GovEnergy conference

I've spent the last few days putting together the finishing touches on a LED presentation for the GovEnergy conference August8-10th. www.govenergy.com I am happy to be re-teaming with Jimalee Dakin, Visa Lighting to represent a version of our LED presentation from Lightfair 2 years ago. But with LED technology moving at such an incredible pace, there are always new things to add.
 

Some recent additions have included:
On Feb 15, 2011 The Energy Star program announced the first LED retrofit lamp (designed to replace the 60w A19) had achieved full "Energy Star Qualified" listing.

On February 16, 2011, the EPA announced the Energy Star Luminaire Specification V.1.0 to assist in indentifying product that meets a specific set of criteria determined to be acceptable by Energy Star. You can visit the site at www.energystar.gov/luminaires.

February was apparently a very busy month as the ZHAGA Consortium (an industry organization for the standarization of LED light engines) released their first set of standardized specifications for a "Scocketable LED light engine with integrated control gear" on February 11, 2011.

This particular specification describes the interfaces of a downlight engine standard. The specifications are only available to ZHAGA members at this time, but will be available for download by the public at a later date. But the idea of standardization in the LED industry certainly has tremondous appeal and its exciting to hear progress on that front as well. You can check it out at www.zhagastandard.org.

And yet another update references the DOE's 12th round of CALiPER testing. CALiPER stands for Commercially Available LED Product Evaluation and Reporting. Visit www1.eere.energy.gov/buildings/ssl/about_caliper.html to view the document with the most recent independent tests run on a varied selection of currently available LED product.  I am sure there are more, but these are a few we recently noted and thought were definately worth sharing at the upcoming conference.