Nitsch Engineering Ranked #2 Best Civil Engineering Firm to Work For

Congratulations Nitsch Engineering and USGBC MA Chapter Sponsor for being named a great place to work!

For the sixth time, Nitsch Engineering, Inc. – a Boston-based civil engineering, land surveying, transportation engineering, sustainable site consulting, planning, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) firm – has been recognized as one of the Best Firms to Work For in the United States by ZweigWhite. Nitsch Engineering was ranked #2 in the ranking of civil engineering firms, and #4 in the A/E industry overall.

“We are particularly proud of this award because the ranking weighs employee feedback more heavily than corporate information – which shows us that we’ve been successful in building a company where our employees feel respected, have challenging and exciting work, and are happy with the direction the firm has taken,” said Lisa A. Brothers, PE, LEED AP, President and CEO of Nitsch Engineering. “Nitsch Engineering is dedicated to continuing to listen to our employees and to provide them with the work/life balance and professional growth opportunities that directly address their needs. We look forward to continuing to improve our workplace as we grow in the future – and to hopefully being ranked #1 soon!”  

The Best Firms to Work For list is one of the most meaningful rankings in the industry. The annual competition includes a corporate survey which accounts for 25% of the total score, and an employee satisfaction survey that accounts for 75% of the total score. Grading criteria include corporate culture, benefits, compensation, professional development, performance/recognition, and recruiting/retention. All of this year’s winners can be seen on ZweigWhite’s website at http://www.zweigwhite.com/awards/best-firms-to-work-for/index.php.  

  

About Nitsch Engineering

Nitsch Engineering (www.nitscheng.com) specializes in providing civil engineering, land surveying, transportation engineering, sustainable site consulting, planning, and GIS services. Since 1989, the company has worked with developers, corporate and institutional owners, public agencies, and design professionals on major private development and public infrastructure projects in 18 states and five countries. Nitsch Engineering is the largest Women-Owned Business Enterprise (WBE) civil engineering firm in Massachusetts, and is also certified as a WBE by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council (WBENC) and in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia.

LEED Project Showcase 2014: Your Sponsorship is Requested

The following is a letter sent to over 150 eligible LEED Project Teams to encourage their participation in the Showcase. If you know anyone who's worked on a LEED-certified building in the past year and a half, please refer them to me so we can bring them on board and so they can earn the attention and accolades they deserve.

Congratulations!

You are eligible for the 2014 Massachusetts LEED Project Showcase. You are the LEED Project Administrator listed for a project certified since Jan. 1, 2013. You did read that right, we want projects since 2013.

Thank you for your hard work to ensure your project attained certification and has benefited from the third-party verification process that USGBC created through LEED. We want your project to be highlighted at the LEED Project Showcase. If you are not central to the project, could you help us by referring us to the person or team who would be? This is a gathering for all parties involved in the creation of certified green buildings.

We are hosting the Showcase on Tuesday evening, September 30th, at Genzyme at 500 Kendall St in Cambridge MA.

More information about the event is here.

would like you to show off your project and sponsor a board, but there are also more significant sponsorship opportunities available.

The higher-level sponsorships include advertisements in the NEREJ, videos produced to describe the project for your future use, and opportunities to present at the event. This year we anticipate 250 people in attendance and excellent networking opportunities.

National Grid has already signed on as a Platinum Sponsor. You can see a video regarding last year's Showcase here. We hope you will participate in this celebration of all things LEED!

Thank you for your interest, and please do not hesitate to correspond so I can clarify the event and the sponsorship opportunities.

Grey Lee
Executive Director

Please forward this message to colleagues with whom you've worked on a LEED Project.

Passive House Conference Gathering in Portland, Maine, in September

by Dona Pfeffer, NAPHN

Portland, Maine, to Host Global and Local High Performance Building Experts

North American Passive House Network 2014 will gather Passive House leaders from across the continent and around the world to share new developments in the future of low carbon construction.

Portland Maine will host the North American Passive House Network 2014: Conference and Expo (NAPHN14) at the Holiday Inn By the Bay on September 22nd and 23rd. Leaders in this future proof building methodology will converge to share solutions on how to address resiliency, carbon reduction and climate change for the built environment. The Passive House Standard has fast gained momentum here in the North East and across North America with leading proponents participating in this event. Local NAPHN 
chapter, passivhausMaine, is thrilled to play host to this conference. 

Founder of the Passive House Institute, Dr. Wolfgang Feist will keynote NAPHN14 with a presentation on how the Passive House Standard is evolving to incorporate Plus Energy buildings with renewable energy sources. In a recent press release on the new rating system, Dr. Feist stated: “A building that produces more energy than it consumes is not only possible, it is often very sensible.” 

With the North East’s challenging climate and strong history of environmental building design, the region has fomented a hotbed of Passive House innovation. Pre-fabrication and the use of non-petroleum-based building materials have surfaced as strong themes here. Local Passive House proponents will be represented in both presentations and two post-event Passive House Projects Tours. Projects on the tours include schools, a co-housing development, multiple residential projects along with retrofits of existing 
homes.

Presentations have been selected from the broad spectrum of climate and building traditions across North America including NAPHN members from Colorado, New York, California, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, Ontario, British Columbia, Quebec, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Massachusetts. International presentations from Austria, Germany, Ireland, the UK, Belgium and China will exemplify the diversity and adaptability of this building methodology and make this the most globally diverse Passive 
House Conference ever hosted on US soil.

NAPHN14 closing plenary speaker Gernot Vallentin who's firm, ArchitekturWerkstatt Vallentin founded by he and partner Rena Vallentin, was awarded the prestigious Best Educational Passive House Building at the 18th International Passive House Conference in Aachen, Germany. The Pulmuone Seminary and Training facility, located in Goesan, South Korea, was designed and completed in 2013 (see below).

The Passive House Standard has come to represent a universal level of quality and performance, and it is this that will be showcased at NAPHN14 in Portland, Maine. 
NAPHN14: Conference & Expo website (with offered trainings, social events & tours).

The Pulmone Seminary and Training Facility in Goesan, South Korea

USGBC MA Chapter has a new home!

We have officially started operations at the new CIC Boston coworking facility - at 50 Milk Street in Boston. We are now on the 19th floor with many of our colleagues from Space with a Soul. The new location is between Post Office Square and Downtown Crossing. 

Looking northwest at the Charles River, across Boston Common, beyond the spire of the Park St. Church. How many green buildings can you see here?

The facility will be more convenient to more volunteers and visitors - located close to all T lines and a short walk from many of our sponsors' and members' offices. We are also now much closer to Boston City Hall and the State House, which will hopefully enable more advocacy work.

We are now officially part of the curated office space network of the CIC (formerly Cambridge Innovation Center) and the building is being renovated for another type of "Venture Cafe" networking venue. This is a big weekly gathering in Kendall Square, Cambridge, currently, and we hope to participate with the innovation community through CIC Boston.

If you have an upcoming meeting at "our offices" - they will now be at 50 Milk Street in comparable space. We will be updating the calendar entries but please know that we will have no further activities at our former location at 281 Summer Street.

Also at CIC Boston is the Impact Hub Boston, for social enterprises working to solve social problems through business-based models. I like to think LEED is one major way to use business to address social & environmental problems, thus meaning we are indeed a social enterprise.

I hope you will stop by for an upcoming meeting. Wait, did I hear someone say "Open House?!"

See you soon,
Grey