Hey folks, Phil Zito here and welcome back! In this post, and for the next several posts, we are going to be doing something a little unique.We're going to be going through projects from start to finish, literally going to be spendingtime on every aspect of a BAS project from handing it off to operations, all the way to closing it out and handing it back off to the customer. Then after that, we're going to shift over to sales and walk through the entire sales process. Everything from how to initially target customers all the way to advanced closing strategies. So, that's what you can expect from us for the next several weeks into months. 

Hey folks, Phil Zito here and welcome back. In this post I'm going to be talking about building automation careers. Now, we've covered this a couple times in past posts, but we still continue to get questions on how people progress in their careers. I'm going to do my best to address both:  

• How do you get into the industry?  
• How do you continue to succeed in the industry and expand your career? 

How do you know if your BAS is designed efficiently?

Does your BAS have the correct capacity to grow with you?

These are questions that every building owner and controls contractor face at some point in their career. Up until this point there really hasn't been an answer to these questions.

Do you know what tools are provided with your new BAS?

I recently received an email asking me about my thoughts on technology convergence versus integration. As I started to write a response to the email I noticed that my response would answer a question that I get here quite often.

I remember an interesting call I got back when I lived in Texas. I was on a troubleshooting call to a church in Southlake, Tx. They were having issues cooling down the rooms in the children's wing and they couldn't seem to figure out why. Upon checking the air handlers sure enough the discharge air set-point wasn't being met despite the cooling valve being 100% open.

While you are reading this article a good percentage of you are sucking hot humid air into your building just to cool it down.

Sucks doesn't it? You spend all this money to control your building only to have your energy budget being blown by some hot humid air.

Its right there in front of you. Can you see it?

I was sitting in a cramped room, surrounded by several software engineers who were passionately arguing among themselves about a data model and how we could integrate two systems seamlessly. I interjected, being the glutton for punishment that I am, what is the value this will deliver? They turned and looked at me with a look that beamed, "Who is this guy and why is he asking about value? Doesn't he understand that there can't be any value if the systems can't even talk?"

It sucked, I literally wasted 3 hours of my life one Saturday waiting to buy tickets for a dance recital. What really sucked was when I realized 2,000 other people were doing the same thing. There we were standing cramped in a small dance studio waiting to buy tickets for a dance recital, what an awesome use of my Saturday morning.