Each year, the National Institute of Building Sciences
recognizes individuals and organizations that have provided outstanding service
to the Institute, the building community and the nation. This year, at its
Annual Awards Reception and Dinner, the Institute honored Dr. Mohammed
Ettouney; the Building Information Model (BIM) Development Team of the
Institute’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education
Program; and Earle Kennett.
The 2014 Institute
Honor Award Goes to…
After receiving his
award and thanking a number of individuals, a very emotional Dr. Ettouney said,
"I was planning to talk about risk, resilience and hazards, but I think you’ve
had enough of that in the last few days. If you want to talk about that, you
know where to find me.”
The Institute Honor Award goes to someone who has made an
exceptional contribution to the nation and the building community. Institute
Chairman James "Tim” Ryan, CBO, presented the 2014 Honor Award to Mohammed Ettouney,
Sc.D, PE, PhD, MBA, F.AEI, Dist.M.ASCE, a principal at Weidlinger Associates,
Inc.
Dr. Ettouney developed several multi-hazard engineering
assessment and resilience management methods that consider both natural and
man-made hazards and their interactions in order to enable objective
assessments of new construction and retrofit schemes. The methodologies are
meant to aid decision makers in the optimal selection of projects and options.
Working first with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and later the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate
(S&T), Dr. Ettouney’s work (in which the Institute also was involved) led
to a series of publications and a collection of software tools for planning and
evaluating buildings, mass transit stations and tunnels. He is a primary
designer of the Advanced Materials Database (AMD) to advance research and
development in better performing materials; the Owners Performance Requirements
(OPR) Tool to simultaneously model risk, resilience and operational performance
for a full range of natural and man-made hazards; and the DHS Integrated Rapid
Visual Screening (IRVS) Tool. A member of the Advanced Materials Council, Dr.
Ettouney currently serves on the Multihazard Mitigation Council and the IRVS
for School Safety Committee, as well as the Advanced and High Performance
Materials and Methods Advisory Board for the Journal of the National Institute of Building Sciences (JNIBS).
The 2014 Institute
Member Award Goes to…
Accepting the award
for the BIM Development Team, Dr. Kerry Joels, President of TLRI, thanked all
of the volunteer participants involved in in the Facility Ops Challenge, and
said, "Maybe next year we’ll have some of you flying to Mars.”
The Institute Member Award goes to a member of the Institute
or affiliate council who has made a substantial contribution in support of the
mission, goals and objectives of the Institute. Institute Chairman Ryan
presented the 2014 Member Award to the STEM Education Program’s BIM Development
Team, which consists of representatives from KieranTimberlake, Gilbane Building
Company, Alderson Engineering and the Total Learning Research Institute (TLRI).
The National Institute of Building Sciences, the National
Aeronautic and Space Administration (NASA) and TLRI partnered to establish the
STEM Education Program. The first initiative under the program is the Mars City
Facility Operations (Ops) Challenge, which utilizes TLRI’s Mars City concept to
introduce building sciences to high school students. Through a team-based
simulation exercise, students will be responsible for operating the virtual
Mars base using the same tools as facility managers. The simulation will be
based on real-life scenarios and linked to a building information model (BIM),
complete with systems, spaces and data.
The BIM Development Team developed the BIM on a compressed
schedule and solely through volunteer time. The model provides the essential
building information that will be loaded into the computerized maintenance
management system (CMMS), which ultimately becomes the interface for the
student simulation. The team made use of the Construction Operations Building
information exchange (COBie) to streamline populating the CMMS. The resulting
model will serve as the backbone of the Facility Ops Challenge.
The 2014 Mortimer M.
Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award Goes to…
"I actually didn’t see
that coming,” said Kennett, upon accepting the award. "The man this award is
named for is one of my favorite friends and mentors.” Kennett went on to
recognize the federal agencies; contractors and consultants; the council and
committee members who volunteer their time; and the Institute Board of
Directors. "To my staff,” he continued. "It’s all about them. I couldn’t have
done anything without them.” In closing,
he said, "I agreed to come work here and it was the greatest decision of my
life.”
The Mortimer M. Marshall Lifetime Achievement Award, the
Institute's highest honor, goes to someone who has demonstrated a lifetime of
dedication to the mission and goals of the Institute. Established in 2011 and
named after the organization's first member, this award is bestowed upon those
who exhibit the passion upon which the Institute is founded.
The Board of Directors elected to present the 2014 Lifetime
Achievement Award to Earle Kennett, Senior Vice President and Chief Operating
Officer of the National Institute of Building Sciences, in recognition of his
long and successful career and his retirement after 25 years of service with
the Institute.
In his position, Kennett has managed and directed hundreds
of projects for federal agencies in architecture and engineering research and
science. He presently manages $15 million in research and technical programs
with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, NASA, Department of Energy, the
Department of Defense, Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Army Corps of
Engineers, Air Force, DHS and the General Services Administration.
He initiated many Institute programs, among them the WBDG
Whole Building Design Guide®, buildingSMART alliance®, United States National
CAD Standard®, National BIM Standard-United States®, ProjNet™, Total Building
Commissioning, High Performance Building Council (HPBC), Facility Maintenance
and Operations Committee (FMOC), National Mechanical Insulation Committee
(NMIC), Low Vision Design Committee (LVDC) and Academy for Healthcare
Infrastructure (AHI), as well as the Building Enclosure Technology and
Environment Council’s BEST Conference Building Enclosure Science &
Technology™.
Before coming to the Institute, Earle served as
administrator of research at The American Institute of Architects, where he
managed various large and complex building research projects. He has taught a
range of technical architectural courses at a number of schools, including the
University of Maryland; Florida A&M University; and the Washington-Alexandria
Center of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University’s College of
Architecture and Urban Studies.
The Institute held the Annual Reception sponsored by
Building Commissioning Association and Dinner on Thursday, January 8, during Building Innovation 2015: the National
Institute of Building Sciences Annual Conference & Expo at the
Washington Marriott Wardman Park, January 6-9, in Washington, D.C. The Annual
Awards Dinner was sponsored by ASTM International, the Associated General Contractors
of America, Building Owners and Managers Association International,
International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials, Kingspan and
the National Insulation Association.
Earlier in the year, the Institute issued a call to industry
for nominations to identify potential award recipients. An Awards Committee
reviewed the submissions and selected winners from the nominees, based on how
their work meets the mission, objectives and goals of the Institute.
The Awards Committee will solicit nominations for 2015
awards in late spring of 2015, with nominations due next July.