I am reaching out to the Green Building United (GBU) community today to share the news that I will be moving on from my role as executive director next month. I have been lucky to work with so many of you over the past six+ years on advancing building efficiency and sustainability in our region, and I am excited about the work that lies ahead for GBU as it continues to grow its impact and expand its community.
I am pleased to share that Katie Bartolotta, Director of Policy and Programs for the past five years at GBU, will serve as Interim Executive Director after my departure on August 6th. Katie and I are working closely with the GBU Board of Directors on the transition and we will have more to share on this process in the coming weeks.
The next chapter for me will be working at the Institute for Market Transformation (IMT), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization that has been an important partner to GBU and the City of Philadelphia on building efficiency and sustainability for the past decade. I am looking forward to bringing my policy and program implementation experience to this new role, where I’ll have the opportunity to work at a national scale on building decarbonization, and have continued opportunities to collaborate with the GBU community.
It has been an honor to lead this organization and to be a part of so much interesting work during my tenure. I’m proud of what we have accomplished in building new, collaborative governance models for inclusive community engagement; taking on the management of critical building efficiency programs and code updates in Philadelphia and Delaware; building meaningful partnerships with several national organizations; and launching a local coalition to advance equitable decarbonization. GBU has been fortunate to have consistently outstanding staff and volunteers leading the way during my time as executive director, and the talented team in place now will no doubt carry that into the future.
I want to offer my sincere thanks to all of you for being a part of this community, and for supporting, encouraging, and sometimes pushing GBU to be creative and ambitious about how we educate, advocate, and implement in service of our mission. I look forward to catching up with folks as the summer goes on. I hope you’ll join us for next week’s virtual New Gravity conference, and keep an eye out for other engagement opportunities to follow.
Sincerely,
Executive Director Alex Dews
