A More Sustainable and Resilient City with Mike Hess Mike Hess is the Smart City Project Director in Orlando, Florida.  He was born and raised in southeastern Wisconsin. He graduated from the Milwaukee School of Engineering.  Mike spent most of his life in Wisconsin and then was recruited by an engineering company in Orlando and focused on mechanical/electrical/plumbing engineering for buildings. “My background is in mechanical engineering but I quickly switched to an energy and sustainability focus early in his career.” -Mike Hess   Mike’s Aha Moment Mike remembers bumping into the CEO at the coffee machine where they had a discussion about Energy Star.  The CEO asked Mike if he would do some research and provide him a short memo version so he was up to date for clients.  That whole exercise caused Mike to stumble upon LEED and more holistic green building rating system. It was just a chance encounter that has brought him to where he is today. “Once I read about it (green buildings), I just gravitated towards it and realized that it was just the right thing to do.” -Mike Hess   Transitioning From the Engineering Side Mike started out as a mechanical engineer right out of college.  He traveled across the country trying to convince people to pursue LEED and Energy Star.  Mike believes it was too early for those customers. He started his own green building consulting firm so he could focus on sustainability.  Once the sustainability movement started to pick up, Mike was recruited back and took his small business to a national and international reach. “For about 10 years projects were mostly LEED, well over a hundred LEED certified projects.” - Mike Hess   Book Recommendations by Michael Braungart and William McDonough by Janine M Benyus   Tune into this podcast to listen to the rest of Mike Hess’s journey in this podcast hosted by Charlie.   Connect with Mike Hess:   Connect with Charlie Cichetti and GBES:   GBES is excited our membership community is growing.  Consider joining our membership community as members are given access to some of the guests on the podcasts that you can ask project questions. If you are preparing for an exam, there will be more insurances that you will pass your next exam, you will be given cliff notes if you are a member, and so much more. Go to to learn more about the 4 different levels of access to this one-of-a-kind career-advancing green building community! If you truly enjoyed the show, don't forget to leave a positive rating and review on .  We have prepared more episodes for the upcoming weeks, so come by again next week! Thank you for tuning in to the !   Copyright © 2019 GBES