An Interview with Alan Glass of the Pittsburg USD
Alan Glass is the Special Projects Accountant/Energy Supervisor in the Facilities Department of the Pittsburg Unified School District. In a Green Technology interview, he discusses what his district is doing to realize its commitment to sustainability and what it means for us to be “good ancestors.”
He’ll be discussing PUSD’s work in a session at the upcoming Green California Schools and Community Colleges Summit.
How did your work at Pittsburg USD get started? Was it a gradual evolution, or did the board tell you, “We’re going green?”
I don’t believe it was a board mandate more than it was the influence of our Chief Business Officer and Deputy Superintendent, a gentleman named Enrique Palacios. Enrique was a very strong proponent of sustainability. Some of it was based on economics, some of it was based on changing laws and requirements for the school district, and some of it was his own personal desire to move the district in a positive, sustainable direction. One of the changes that came about early on was slowly converting all of our custodial materials used to being Green certified, or at least green in nature, to get away from hazardous materials.
As it evolved, he saw a real need for us to put in solar. We went as far as taking out a certificate of participation for the district to be able to finance the solar arrays, and we now have solar arrays at every one of our school sites. As time went on, he also saw the economic benefits of things. For example, with the solar arrays, between the CSI rebates that we got back and the cumulative savings that we’ve had in energy savings, they have come close to paying for themselves.
Another one of the early changes we made was changing all of the urinals in the boy’s bathrooms and men’s bathrooms district wide to waterless urinals. Each one saves close to 40,000 gallons a year. That saves potable water, saves money, and allows more water in the community and so on.
It’s grown to the point that we’re now doing some really important things. We’re at DSA right now with plans to build a new elementary school to replace a very old school that will be a Zero Net Energy school. That is leading the way for the community to see what can be done in regard to sustainability and energy conservation.
Are there any other recent projects that stand out?
We’re currently converting our yellow and white transportation fleets to more electric vehicles. We currently have two all-electric buses and we have submitted grant applications to be able to get six or seven more. We’re working with PG&E on a beta test program to install bus-charging units in our district; we’ll have nine units shortly. We have six Kia Soul all-electric vehicles that we’re using to transport Special Ed students, and several staff who do a lot of site work use them as does our courier. We’ve put in 24 electric vehicle charging stations district-wide so far, with more planned.
We have begun to use reclaimed, recycled water at two sites where it was available too. A new school that is going to be a ZNE school will also have all its irrigation done with reclaimed, recycled water.
We’re putting in one acre of solar on a piece of land that’s a bio-swale, it’s a water retention area that needs to have natural vegetation growing on it. We’re using a new solar panel that’s just been developed at UC Santa Cruz that allows the light needed for vegetation to go through and enhance plant growth, while it captures the light needed for photovoltaic production. On the same project, we’re installing four vertical-axis 10 kilowatt wind turbines.
We will be generating power for our bus-charging area as well as the rest of our corporate yard area with not just solar, but wind power. These are some of the projects that we’re working on right now.
What kind of response have you had from the faculty and students as you’ve been doing this work?
When we started developing the bioswale solar and wind project, we had a groundbreaking ceremony and we invites three of the AP Environmental Science classes from our lone comprehensive high school to come and participate. They were really excited about being here and seeing what we’re doing. They got a tour of the project and got to see the new type of solar panels up close. They got some exposure that they might not normally have had.
Because of that, I have developed a proposal to build a learning center at the site of our new solar and wind project. It has had an extremely excited reception from all the staff that it’s been presented to so far, including the Executive Director of Educational Services. We will not only have this solar and wind project, but we’re also going to be making a learning center out of it. Students can see firsthand how we can go from natural resources of sunlight and wind to powering an electric bus. In fact, we will use those buses to pick up and take the students from their sites to the learning center and back, so that they can ride an electric bus that’s powered by the project that they’ll be studying.
What have you found to be successful strategies for maintaining board support for this kind of work?
The first thing that I felt was important was having full support from the Superintendent. No matter what you do, somehow you’ve got to be able to show that the economics of a project are going to work. If the economics are contradictory to a smart business decision, the board is naturally not going to go for it. This bioswale solar and wind project has a return on investment of less than 13 years. It’s got a life expectancy of 25-30 years. It made solid economic sense on a long-term basis, it’s going to be able to be part of curriculum and it’s going to be very sustainable for the district.
I feel very fortunate that we have a board that is very open and receptive to hearing about new projects. They want to be sustainable, but the bottom line is the bottom line. Part of task from the business side of things is asking where can we get outside resources. What can we do to help pay for these projects that we feel are really important, that will make them worth doing?
Building a school as a Zero Net Energy school is making an additional investment, but we’re building a school that’s going to last 50, 60, 70 years. If we can recoup the cost of these additional features to make it ZNE within 10 years, then it’s a very wise decision.
What you would like to do next? You mentioned the ZNE elementary school. Is there any other type of project that you’d like to take on?
I’m hoping that we’re going to be able to move all of our schools to be closer to ZNE. One of the benefits of having solar is that we’re already halfway there. But there are places that we haven’t yet explored that we’re working on now, such as retrofitting an entire school’s lighting to get it all converted to LED and reduce our carbon footprint. We’re also looking at things like plug load controls so that we can just enhance a little bit more what we do to conserve. I’m also trying to work with the folks that generate the reclaimed water to see if they can extend their pipeline to any other of our sites so that we can increase our use of reclaimed water and use less potable water out of the system.
What’s your perception of the current level of interest in sustainability across the school community? Is there more interest than there has been in the past? Should it be moving faster?
I wish it was moving faster. I spoke to you earlier about making the economics work. Often school districts don’t know where to turn or where to go to find means of offsetting some of their costs, or to find ways of doing projects. Some don’t find it a priority. Their priority is to make sure that they’ve got money to pay for programs, money to pay for staff. We’re no different in that regard, but I think part of the difference is that we’ve been aggressively out looking for ways to make it work. There are districts that either don’t have people working there that want to make the effort to find resources, or they’ve not had success doing it.
Budgets are tight. Prop 39 loosened up a lot of school districts’ ability to do things but it was all energy efficiency. It was a means of using state funds to improve their sites, but not necessarily looking at projects from all aspects of sustainability. Part of what I take great pride in, in working for this district, is that we’re making a concerted effort to lead by example and show students and their families some of the things that we’re doing to make the world a little better place.
Do you have any suggestions about how districts might be able to find the information they need they can fill in the blanks regarding resources or the best ways to approach projects
I read as much as I can about programs that I think we might be able to use. I talk to people that I think might have the ability to help us. As an example, I’ve made a good business relationship with our energy efficiency representative from PG&E. She knows what we’ve done, she knows what our district wants to do. We’ve been fortunate that they’ve brought a couple of programs to us and said, “This is something that might fit you guys, are you interested?” In regard to our efforts to put in bus charging stations, because we already made the commitment for two buses they were interested in using us as a test site. When we told them that we were expanding the program, they were even happier about that because it gave them a bigger test opportunity.
We’re willing to work with them to make easy for them to do whatever testing they need to do. They have a program called “on-bill financing,” which allows a school district to do energy efficiency projects and use your savings from a project as an offset in your billing. We’re in discussions right now to be able to start doing our lighting retrofit without any out of pocket funds. The will be financed interest-free through PG&E’s program.
When we first were looking at doing car vehicle charging stations, I started looking on the web. I found a company and I started talking to this guy, and he introduced me to somebody else and the next thing I know I have a grant for the infrastructure for our electric vehicle charging stations.
You have to be willing to put the time in and look for things and talk to people. And as I said when I spoke to the group at your place a month ago, going to a conference like the Green California schools event allows me to meet a lot of people. Just by introducing myself and saying, “This is what I’m looking for, this is what I’m interested in,” people will bring things to you and say, “This is what we have, is there anywhere that it fits with you?”
Yo have to be willing to put the work in, and you have to be willing to go out and talk to a lot of people to get to where you want to be.
In your email signature, you include the phrase “Are we being good ancestors?” What does that mean to you?
I was reading something, and I don’t even remember where it was, but I saw this quote. The quote originally comes from Dr. Jonas Salk. When I read it, it set off all these bells and whistles in my head. The work I do in the school district is for the students. It’s great to be employed, but the long-term benefit of being employed by a school district and the work that I do is to be able to help kids have an easier time down the road.
“Are we being good ancestors?” is asking whether what we are doing now is going to make the world a better place. Or is it going to not have any effect on the world? Or a detrimental effect?
I am happy to say that my own personal philosophy of what I do in my job, although I don’t have a lot of direct contact with students, I do know the work that I’m doing is going to benefit the kids now and in future generations. That makes what I do important to me. I get my gratification from knowing that the work I’m doing is going to leave Pittsburgh Unified and the community of Pittsburgh a better place than it was before I started.