Winter 2016 Newsletter

Robert Croom and David Stuart at BAS V.

MAKING CONNECTIONS

As 2016 comes to an end, the team at BEST Center would like to wish you a very warm and Happy Holiday season. We look forward to seeing your faces in mid-January for our Annual Institute. Until then, here’s an update on what’s happening:
 

Welcome, Victor Garcia!

Please help us welcome Victor Garcia, MPA, Ed.D., our new Coordinator. Victor has over 10 years of experience in program administration with community colleges, CSU and UC systems. Most recently he has been a consultant to educational and philanthropic organizations like the Marin Community Foundation and the Fulbright Visiting Scholar Enrichment Program. Victor is bringing a lot of expertise in program administration which will assist the BEST Center in managing its activities and College Network.
 

Our Annual Institute is Coming! 

Our annual gathering of members is right around the corner, Jan 11-14, 2017 to be precise. The theme is “Learning by Doing in Building Technician Education: New Technologies, Teaching Strategies, and Lab Applications,” and we are planning hands-on activities, tours, and sessions to support it. We are almost at capacity but the deadline to apply has been extended till Thursday, Dec 15 at 5pm PT. Read more.
 

Webinar: ACE Mentor – Building Pathways from High School to College 

On January 26, 2017 will we host our next webinar that will feature the ACE Mentor Program. Providing after-school activities supported by volunteers from the design and construction industry, ACE Mentor’s mission is to engage, excite and enlighten high school students to pursue careers in architecture, construction, engineering, and the building trades. This webinar will highlight how community and technical colleges can get involved with local ACE high school teams to promote the building trades and  pathways to certificate and associate degree programs; stay tuned for more info. Register here. 
 

New HPBOP Training in January 2017 at Laney College, Oakland

BEST Center has teamed up with SoCal Edison and Building Owners and Managers Association of California (BOMA California) to kick-off an exciting 12-session High Performance Building Operations Professionals training for in-state building engineers and technicians. Emphasis will be on lab-focused exercises that help prepare participants to manage their own buildings to become high performance facilities of the future. If you know individuals who might qualify for this training, please share this newsletter and encourage them to register on the BEST Center website. Read more.

Take a Virtual Lab Tour

Virtual lab videos from GA Piedmont Technical College, College of DuPage and Lane Community College are now available for viewing. If you would like to see the lab spaces, equipment and how they all translate to curriculum, then spend some time soaking in the technical details and teaching philosophies provided by BEST Network members Jeryll McWhorter, Bob Clark, Bruce Alford, and Josh Manders.
 

Equipment and Software Discounts

In collaboration with industry leaders, BEST Center is pleased to extend discounts for equipment and software licenses to our members developing instructional labs. Automated Logic, Honeywell, Siemens and Triatek have all agreed to offer 40% (in some cases more) off their list prices to educational members of BEST Center. Be sure to give a shout out to our awesome industry leaders! Read more.

News to share?

Please add info@bestctr.org to your email lists so we are in the loop on news in your programs.

Contact Us

As always, please contact us if you are in need of support and/or resources to advance your HVAC and building automation programs.

“This one trend, climate change, affects all trends.”

– U.S. President Barack Obama, December 1, 2015, at the COP21 conference in Paris. He continued to say “If we let the world keep warming as fast as it is and sea levels rising as fast as they are, and weather patterns keep shifting in more unexpected ways, then before long we are going to have to devote more and more and more of our economic and military resources not to growing opportunity for our people, but to adapting to the various consequences of a changing planet.”