“Inspirational, educational and fun. I really gained a lot of knowledge and met so many interesting and terrific people!”

Planet Earth is always evolving to sustain life for its inhabitants.  It is our job to be its caretaker, knowing that it needs proper care and maintenance.  
Back in 2003, a group of individuals knew what they needed to do in Wisconsin to bring that awareness; they started a conference called “The Wisconsin Renewable Energy Summit.”
With much growth and participation, attendees were able to see their social responsibilities to the environment and help green businesses flourish and look at making energy-efficient products and renewables.  
In 2010, “The Green Energy Summit” was the new name for the summit, bringing together more of the names in the industry to share their expertise on going green and how to conserve to save our planet.
MATC instructor George Stone, chair of the Sustainability Committee shared that the committee went with a theme that embodies all the sectors of their investment (energy, water, lifestyle, business and workforce), in their 10th year of service to the community as the Sustainability Summit.
On Feb. 22, Stone received the proclamation from Tom Barrett, mayor of Milwaukee and shared with us the news that the mayor proclaimed March 3 – 9, 2013 to be Milwaukee Sustainability Week.
The summit started on a snowy day. Marquette University opened their doors to host the VIP reception on March 5, in their newly developed engineering hall off Wisconsin Avenue and 16th St.
Representatives from MU gave welcoming remarks to guests and Stone took to the podium to thank everyone for their continued support of the summit.  
Speakers in attendance at the reception were C.S. Kiang, vice president of Global Union Development, University of Peking; Ed Begley Jr., actor, activist and for A.O. Smith, and many others came to mingle.
Thomas Ganey, university architect, gave guests a floor-by-floor tour of the building.
The functionality of Phase I enforced their ideas and discoveries which help address the global challenges of today and tomorrow: clean water, a strong infrastructure, efficient energy and healthy communities, which were set forth in their vision for the hall.
“We wanted to give students a home with a lot of space and an icon recognizable to the college,” said Ganey while giving the tour.
This venue exemplifies the ideas of being energy efficient and houses four major laboratories (robotics, water quality, human performance and energy themed) where students of Marquette can conduct their own experiments while being a part of an experiment.
Brad Bonkewiez, director of technology, further explained the interactive display; eventually all the sensors will translate all the data to the display.
“Once we get the funding, you’ll be able to touch the screen at any point and read measurements of water collected or see how the wind shifts affected the building for that day,” said Bonkewiez.  The innovations being made today are strides that make events like the Sustainability Summit successful.  
This year, the committee allowed the Times to sit in on their meetings and witness the behind the scenes challenges.  
From scheduling conflicts to registration counts, this committee worked effortlessly together, from the winter break continually until the day of the reception.  
Mary Pat Halaska, summit marketing chair, spent countless hours making calls to get the word out to all the social media; while Bill Quirmbach, summit logistics chair, made sure all the needs of the summit were met prior and even the day of the summit to provide the architecture of the exposition.
Behind the scenes, Tam Hoang and Caryn Dohring, summit co-registrars watched closely the online registrations and fixed any errors prior to the summit, so that by check-in they knew which stack to look for your name badge and information  package.
If you happened to go through the exposition, Bruce Bessert worked to make sure the tours were set up and the posters gave students a new platform to get involved and express sustainability. Mel Bromberg, summit international chair the summit with her involvement in sustainability through water. Bromberg was able to contact consulates and bring representatives from Germany, China and Israel.
Also for the first time, short films were displayed with themes pertaining to sustainability with entries from France and even one from Milwaukee.  
This is the work in which this committee has been working on for 10 years.  Here’s to another 10 and cleaner tomorrow.
 

Printed Version (MATC Times)