Students Leading Sustainability:

Alex Blue is the Building Energy Practice Lead for Morrison Hershfield. Alex works on energy analysis for new and existing buildings, with a focus on providing practical solutions for energy efficiency and reduced life cycle cost. She combines her background in mechanical engineering with experience in early design parametric modeling, calibrated modeling, and energy audits, and has worked with teams across North America on over 100 projects for a variety of building types.

Michael Flowers is a Professional Engineer and LEED Green Associate currently working for WSP Canada Inc. As a Municipal Engineer, he practices engineering design and construction administration in the Eastern Ontario Region for various infrastructure projects, which includes consulting and project management services. Mr. Flowers works as a part of a team to provide these services for local and national clients including municipal, provincial and federal government agencies. He assists with the review and application of sustainable initiatives for many projects including LEED certification projects and specializes in storm water and wastewater computer modelling involving the analysis and application of Low-Impact Design (LID).

As a long-serving volunteer for the Ottawa Region Chapter (ORC), Mr. Flowers is the current chair of the ORC’s Leadership Board for the Canadian Green Building Council (CaGBC). Mr. Flowers is involved in the strategic planning, promotion, and operation of the ORC and actively participates in their mission to accelerate the green building environment within Eastern Ontario and the National Capital Region. Mr. Flowers helps to shape chapter advocacy efforts through his engagement with the green building community and members to bring enhanced programing, partnerships, education, and networking event offerings. Through participation in the first Emerging Green Professionals (EGP) committee for Ottawa he has combined his passion for mentorship to facilitate the formation of dedicated student EGP groups at post-secondary institutions. Mr. Flowers actively participated in helping the chapter positively transition to the new CaGBC integrated nationwide organization in 2015-2016 and continues to work with CaGBC staff, board volunteers, and all national chapters through the Chapter Advisory Committee to enhance the combined mission of the CaGBC and the chapters. Mr. Flowers also sits on the Ottawa Energy Collective Impact Leadership Board as an industry advocacy and CaGBC representative.

Tony is a professional engineer with 37 years experience in engineering, facilities management and capital development. He has considerable institutional experience, particularly with McMaster University and Mohawk College where he has commenced his new role as Research Chair, Sustainability. He is providing leading-edge research that will contribute to a low-carbon economy, while engaging students to develop a multi-disciplinary focus on finding real world solutions to social, economic and environmental challenges.

In his leadership capacity at Mohawk College, he was responsible for the planning, design, construction and operation of the first Net-Zero institutional project in Ontario – The Joyce Centre for Partnership and Innovation.

He has a doctorate degree in Civil Engineering from McMaster University with a focus on green buildings and policy and is a former adjunct faculty member at McMaster. He is a lead author on three peer-reviewed journal research papers related to green buildings and is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Green Building.

James Furlong is the Managing Partner for the Calgary office of MCW. James has 18 years of consulting experience across the United States and Canada, and specializes in high performance and resilient building design and retrofits. James is also enthusiastic about education. He is Industry Advisory Board member for for SAIT and NAIT, and is a member of the Canada Green Building Council’s Faculty.

Sheila has over 30 years of experience in the sustainability field and specifically with sustainable buildings. Sheila has contributed to the development of many of the sustainable building certification tools for both design and facility operation such as LEED for Building Design and Construction (BD+C), LEED for Commercial Interiors (ID+CI) and LEED for Existing Buildings: Operations and Maintenance (EB:OM). She has been a member of the faculty for the Canada Green Building Council (CaGBC) since 2004 and was a member of the Canada Green Building Technical Advisory Group from 2003 to 2018. She has also served as a member of the Board of Directors for the Ottawa Chapter of the Canada Green Building Council. Sheila has always believed that the key to success is finding the balance between environmental responsibility and economic viability and what gets measured can be managed. She has been involved in many projects that have successfully achieved certification under various sustainable building rating systems and has helped to develop many corporate sustainability standards and policies for both private and public sector organizations.