Energy Efficiency Expo! - Sunday, March 29, 2015

After weeks of planning, the Energy Efficiency Expo has come and gone with resounding success. The program consisted of presentations on energy rebates from Tucson Electric Power and Tucson Water, as well as a keynote address by resource economist John "Skip" Laitner. To add a more personal element to the expo, there was also a panel of business owners and managers that had taken advantage of these rebates in the past. 

After the event, the general consensus was that the business panel was the highlight of the program. It gave a different perspective to energy efficient technology--one that wasn't all charts, graphs, and numbers. With humor and relatable advice, representatives from Eegee's, Our Mother of Sorrows, Allstate Insurance, Raytheon, and Buffalo exchange helped to make energy efficiency more accessible.

With an overall attendance of over 140 Southern Arizona businesses, this expo was one of the, if not THE, largest energy efficiency summit in Arizona history. It was so successful that we plan to do another one in the near future!

Thanks for reading,

Jacob

State of the City and Scanning - Thursday, March 12, 2015

The State of the City address has come and gone, and was a huge success. Topics were wide-ranging, but focused, detailing the city's successes with what Mayor Rothschild calls Tucson's new biggest resources, the 5 T's--technology, trade, transportation, teaching, and tourism. I won't go into too many details (a complete transcript and video of the speech can be found here), but other points of interest included education funding in the state of Arizona and the importance of internships, which made me feel warm and fuzzy.

As I mentioned last week, I participated in the Southern Arizona Water Users Association Forum on Friday, March 6. Discussion was, unsurprisingly, focused on water conservation and sustainability. We were assured that, though many other southwestern states are experiencing droughts, Arizona is not in any sort of water shortage crisis. I was also glad to hear that as some states, like California, may have to start rationing water, Arizona will not be forced to take such measures because of our long history of conservation and planning.

At the office, preparation for the upcoming Energy Efficiency Expo continues. To gather contact information from possible attendees, I have been given the task of scanning a lot--a LOT--of business cards. While this job isn't the most exciting thing in the world, it is necessary if the office wants anyone to show up, and I'm more than happy to do it. I'm really starting to get excited for the event; seeing the end result of this work will be extremely rewarding.

That's all for now. Thanks!

Jacob

Energy Efficiency Expo - Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Ryan wasted no time getting me involved in the Tucson community. My first two weeks of on-site work have largely been spent working with him on an Energy Efficiency Expo that he has been putting together. It's exciting to see something like this come together, especially when I feel like I am putting forth meaningful contributions. I have been calling and emailing local business organizations and trade associations trying to win over potential attendees. I have also been put in change of researching simple, streamlined possible methods of RSVP-ing, which I have been told is the most complex part of the event-planning process (especially because the expo is being held in the secured Tucson Electric Power building, and all who attend need pre-made name tags). Witnessing--and partaking in--the sheer amount of effort that goes into a mere three-hour long energy efficiency workshop is truly eye-opening; I can only imagine how long and how hard everyone in the office has been working on Mayor Rothschild's upcoming State of the City Address.

As I only work three days a week, I have a substantial amount of free time. I've managed to fill it up with outside reading assigned by the Mayor, particularly Alan Ehrenhalt's The Great Inversion and the Future of the American City, which tackles the tough subject of gentrification in the United States' largest urban areas. [Note: Shawtaroh discusses gentrification in more depth in his Week-Two blog post, which can be found here.]

As an interesting aside, I have also been asked to be the Mayor's representative at this Friday's Southern Arizona Water Users Association (SAWUA) Forum. Exciting!

As always, thanks for reading!

Jacob