Physical plant receives awards

UNM energy engineers at the Physical Plant Department were recognized by the New Mexico Association of Energy Engineers with two prestigious awards for decades of achievements in increasing energy efficiency on campus.

The PPDs Engineering and Energy Services division won the Corporate Energy Management award for outstanding accomplishments in developing, organizing, managing and implementing their corporate energy management program, according to the NMAEE website.

And Donald Swick, University facilities engineer, was honored with Energy Engineer of the Year award for his lifetime achievements.

The award is given to an individual for outstanding accomplishments in promoting the practices, principles and procedures of energy engineering, the website said.

Swick said his individual award is based on his work in energy conservation for the past 40 years at various locations around the state. Most of his work at UNM has involved upgrading the infrastructures of some of UNMs oldest facilities, such as Northrop and Regener Halls, he said.

Each of those projects was a total upgrade of building controls, improvements to the heating and cooling systems and reduced wattage to lighting systems, Swick said. Typically, we saw in the range of 35- to 45-percent savings in each of those projects.

The true honor is having the opportunity to work with a talented group of engineers at the PPD, he said.

Not only are we looking at projects that involve improving the performance within buildings, we have developed a group of technicians that have the training and the skills to install, operate and maintain these new digital control systems, Swick said.

David Penasa, facilities engineer-electrical, said he has been involved with the PPD for 11 years. He and his fellow engineers have been working hard to reduce UNMs energy dependence and to be recognized for (their) work is extremely gratifying, he said.

The fact that we can save on the order of more than a million dollars a year in utility costs by implementing these energy conservation projects, I think, is pretty impressive, Penasa said.

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Physical plant receives awards