In The News

3/29/2010 - New York House - Green Homes Advocate

3/18/2010 - Eco-Intel - Unions Train a New Generation of Workers for Green Jobs

2/2/2010 - Environment and the Economy in NYC - New York City Labor Unions Train Workers For a Green Jobs Future

1/25/2010 - Tech News Daily - A Blueprint for Greening New York City's Buildings

1/15/2010 - MetroLatinoUSA - Federal Grant to Expand Union’s “Green Suppers” Program

1/15/2010 - Greener Buildings - Yogi Berra was Right

1/14/2010 - Greener Buildings - A Blueprint for Greening New York City's Buildings

1/12/2010 - SEIU - Recovery Act Grants Help SEIU Grow Green Training Programs

1/7/2010 - Greener Buildings - NYC's '1,000 Green Supers' Program Lands $2.8M Federal Grant

1/6/2010 - WNYC - Nearly $3million for Green Supers

11/29/2009 - El Diario - Un Conserje Bien Ecológico (Spanish)

11/22/2009 - New York Times - Start Small and Think Long-Term: Saving Energy

11/19/2009 - Mayor Bloomberg Added to Green Team

11/6/2009 - CNN en Espanol

11/2/2009 - Habitat Magazine - Green Supers: A Property Mgr. Takes the Free Union Workshop and Reports

10/30/2009 - Green Planet - Greening NYC, 1,000 Supers At a Time

10/15/2009 - Green Building Elements - New York City Starts "One Year, One Thousand Green Supers" Green Building Program

10/11/2009 - SEIU Blog - Turning the Big Apple into the Big Green Apple

10/8/2009 - NY Green Fashion (Japanese Blog) - Green Building Policy of New York City: NYC Cool Roofs and Green Building Training Program | View Translation

10/4/2009 - Environmental Policy - One Year, One Thousand Green Supers

10/1/2009 - Greener Buildings - New York Aims to Train One Thousand Green Supers in a Year

9/30/2009 - Sustainable Business - NYC To Train Green Supers

9/29/2009 - Environmental News Service - New York City Cultivates Green Building Upgrades Two Ways

9/29/2009 - Green Buildings NYC - That's Super: Bloomberg, Realty Advisory Board, 32BJ Join Forces to Green City's Superintendents

9/29/2009 - Mother Nature Network - NYC green building program launches

9/28/2009 - AZO Building - Supers to be Trained in Energy Efficient Practices

9/28/2009 - Cleaning and Management Online - Mayor Bloomberg added to green team

9/28/2009 - Owner's Insight - Bloomberg’s Push For Energy Efficiency

9/28/2009 - The Real Deal - New program to train supers in going green

9/25/2009 - Crain's New York - Going green: Let a thousand supers bloom

9/25/2009 - NBCNY - NYC Green Buildings Program

9/25/2009 - New York 1 - City Launches Program For More Efficient Buildings

9/25/2009 - New York 1 Noticias - Lanzan programa de entrenamiento para ahorrar energía con tecnología eficiente

9/9/2009 - Multihousing News - 1,000 Green Supers in One Year

9/4/2009 - Apollo Alliance - Labor Unions’ Green Efforts Are Cause for Celebration

8/26/2009 - Environmental Stewardship, Columbia University - Columbia, Local 32BJ Forge New Green Working Relationship

8/24/2009 - Habitat Magazine - Free Greening Program: Save the Planet, One Super at a Time

8/10/2009 - Columbia University, Off the Cuff - Columbia Helps Green New York’s Buildings One Superintendent at a Time

8/10/2009 - SEIU Blog - The Vanguard of an American Clean Energy Revolution

7/31/2009 - Cleaning and Management Online - 1 Year:1,000 Green Supers

1,000 Green Supers Instructor Profiled at New York House

Ellen Honigstock has been profiled on the New York House Magazine website. Ellen, a champion for Green Buildings in NYC, teaches multiple subjects to 32BJ superintendents, including Quantifying Energy Use, Building Science, Building Envelope, and Indoor Environmental Quality.
Making an impact is what she's all about. She teaches superintendents of buildings about new energy efficient operations and maintenance practices through the 1,000 Green Supers Program at the SEIU Local 32BJ Thomas Shortman Training Fund. The Fund just received a $2.8 million federal stimulus grant to expand and train 2,200 supers in New York.

The supers spend five full days learning the latest, state-of-the-art practices: how to identify and address wasted energy, create a green operating plan, and perform cost-benefit analysis for building owners and managers. "We give them a lot of strategies. But I hope the thing that we give them the most is tools to be able to communicate why this is important," Honigstock relates. Many have been superintendents for 25, 30, or 40 years, and they've been doing things the same way, she says, adding that she enjoys watching them exchange strategies and confer about their own experiences.

"I totally love it-and it's a really important program," Honigstock says. "They are the front lines-they have more control than I would say any other group in the city, other than building owners."
Nick Prigo - Mar 30, 2010 | 12:45pm 0 Comments

Blogging 1,000 Green Supers

Michael Wolfe, President of 2007's NYARM Management Company of the Year - Midboro Management, is one of the most active supporters of green operations and maintenance in New York City. Just sending his superintendents through the 1,000 Green Supers program is not enough for him. He decided that he wanted to shadow one of the classes and blog about his experience. Over the next three weeks Michael will be posting what he learns for Habitat Magazine.

Day 1: October 22nd, 2009
Day 2: October 29th, 2009
Day 3: November 5th, 2009
Our course outline for today would include: building science, building envelope and lighting, and appliance and plug load. It may not sound very interesting, but it was.

For example, the T12 fluorescent bulb has been an industry standard and is in most of your building's basements, stairwells and back halls. But T8 bulbs use less electricity and provide more light. As an exercise, we broke into groups and learned how to change a fixtures ballast to retrofit it for a T8 bulb. And then on my own, I went to Home Depot and got the materials to change a T12 fixture to a T8 in my own home!

The other participants and I enjoyed our first day, and although eight hours in a classroom can be a little draining, we all came away with options to save money for our buildings, reduce energy consumption and reduce our carbon footprint. And that's just day one. Come back next Monday for my report on day two.
Nick Prigo - Nov 10, 2009 | 9:14am 0 Comments

Planet Green - Greening NYC, 1,000 Supers At a Time

Rachel Cernansky is covering the 1,000 Green Supers program in a post at the Planet Green blog.
While living in New York encourages certain environmentally friendly behaviors, like the use of public transportation, there are many aspects of life that could stand a little eco-improvement. Residential buildings are one such area: many buildings are older, run inefficiently, and use poorly maintained heating systems and outdated appliances such as older toilets that consume significantly more water than their newer counterparts. But with proper education, managers can take some basic steps to make their buildings vastly less wasteful of energy and water - and money.

Enter the Green Supers program, which has set out the goal of training 1,000 superintendents in one year. The program, which is run by the Thomas Shortman Training Fund, quotes studies showing that even before any major expenses are undertaken, simple changes in how a building is operated can reduce energy use by 10 percent - and that if all of the city's large apartment buildings reduced their energy by that much, New Yorkers could save $230 million a year and reduce their carbon emissions by the equivalent of taking 150,000 cars off the road.
Nick Prigo - Oct 30, 2009 | 12:48pm 0 Comments

NY1: City Launches Program For More Efficient Buildings

New York television station NY1 profiled the launching of the 1 Year:1,000 Green Supers this past Friday, Sept. 25th. A different profile was run on NY1 sister channel NY1 Noticias.
"By doing all this, our building supers could effectively save New Yorkers an estimated $230 million every single year," said the mayor. "And if every single one of our large residential buildings took these small steps and received just a 10-percent energy saving, the greenhouse gas reductions would be phenomenal. It would be like taking 150,000 vehicles off the road."
Nick Prigo - Sep 30, 2009 | 3:37pm 0 Comments

That's Super: Bloomberg, Realty Advisory Board, 32BJ Join Forces to Green City's Superintendents

David Roth at GreenBuildingsNYC discusses the implications of 1 Year: 1,000 Green Supers and how training can transform the entire profession of building superintendent to meet the needs of an energy efficient New York City.
One Year, One Thousand Green Supers program seems like an eminently worthwhile idea, and another smart green step for a Mayor who (whatever you think of him) has done very good work in this area. Bloomberg called it a "smart, practical effective way to help make the Big Apple green" at the ceremony announcing the launch of the program, and it's hard not to agree. A city full of LEED-certified buildings is only as green, after all, as the people running those buildings...
Nick Prigo - Sep 30, 2009 | 2:23pm 0 Comments

Habitat Magazine: Save the Planet, One Super at a Time

Frank Lovece of Habitat Magazine profiles the 1,000 Green Superintendents program for an upcoming issue.
Like the eco-superhero Captain Planet and his Planeteers, a real-life "super" hero may soon help save the Earth. When carbon footprints stomp, when noxious gas comes knockin' and when green starts to fade to black, two serious New York organizations are stepping in to form their own Eco-Justice League of America.

The initiative is a partnership of the Thomas Shortman Fund of the Service Employees International Union Local 32BJ, ... and the Urban Green Council, the New York City chapter of the nonprofit educational/advocacy group the U.S. Green Building Council.
Nick Prigo - Aug 25, 2009 | 7:55pm 0 Comments

Columbia Helps Green New York's Buildings One Superintendent at a Time

Columbia University is on the forefront of the national effort to make our large buildings green. As part of their institution wide sustainability effort they have signed on to participate in 32BJ's 1,000 Green Supers program. In a recent publication Columbia profiled the 32BJ initiative and a residential superintendent who has participated in the program.
Loretta Zuk, superintendent of a Columbia residential building at 547 Riverside Drive for the past 15 years, explained how the training will help her make changes to become more environmentally-friendly. "The first day of class we learned about building science and how to make buildings environmentally safe inside and out when it comes to things such as water, heat and ventilation," said Zuk.
Nick Prigo - Aug 10, 2009 | 2:17pm 0 Comments

1,000 Supers Green Supers Program Profiled at CMM Online

Momentum continues to build for the launch of the Shortman Fund's Green Building Initiative to train 1,000 Green Supers. Recently, Aaron Baunee of CMM Online profiled the green jobs training program in their Sustainability Newsletter.

According to Linda Nelson, director of the Building Service 32BJ Thomas Shortman Training, Scholarship and Safety Fund, the training program covers the building's envelope, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, water usage, lighting and indoor air quality (IAQ).

"We're well on our way, even though the 1 Year: 1,000 Green Supers program has not even been launched yet," states Nelson. "We already have commitments from some of the largest property management firms in New York City, amounting to several hundred superintendents."
Nick Prigo - Aug 1, 2009 | 4:14pm 0 Comments
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