In April 2014, Dave Spooner, Supervisor of Maintenance & Construction at Duluth Public School District, enrolled six building operators in the Building Operator Certification (BOC) class in Cloquet, MN. As a supervisor, Dave was interested in the BOC program because it helps empower the employee and gets them thinking critically about energy use in buildings.

“The BOC program provided our employees some good knowledge and perspective on how they can utilize the new technology we have to provide a better service to our users and yet save energy,” Dave said.

Chicago’s Building Energy Use Benchmarking Ordinance calls on existing municipal, commercial, and residential buildings larger than 50,000 square feet to track whole-building energy use, report to the City annually, and verify data accuracy every three years. The data verification is required to be completed by an in-house or third-party licensed professional, and MEEA’s BOC credential is one of six credentials recognized by the City of Chicago for data verification.