KEEMA

The KEEMA Story

 

The Kentucky Education Energy Management Association (KEEMA) began in the summer of 2012 when the two-year federal funding of the School Energy Management Project (SEMP) ended and the SEMP program temporarily disbanded. The SEMP Program began in the spring of 2010 when Ron Willhite, the founder and leader of SEMP, brought four Regional Coordinators (Martha Casher, Tim Eaton, John Noel, Larry Woods), and an Administrative Assistant (JoAnn Rohrback) together. The SEMP Administrative team then hired over 35 new Energy Mangers to work with the 15 Energy Managers who were already employed in the state school systems. These 50 plus Energy Managers, led by the SEMP administrative team served over 120 school districts in the state. The SEMP initiative was funded from a 2-year grant made available from the federal stimulus program.

 

When the federal funding ended in the summer of 2012 the remaining 35 Energy Managers formed KEEMA as a means to continue to share best-practice and to have an efficient communications network for distributing information. KEEMA members eventually established an oversight Board and elected officers in 2013. The SEMP group reformed later in 2012 and SEMP and KEEMA have worked closely together ever since. SEMP is represented on the KEEMA Board.

 

The KEEMA Association is an altruistic, best-practice organization and is entirely non-funded. All member activities are voluntary and there is no fee for a school system to participate be it public, private, K12, or higher education. KEEMA host an open web-conference call on the third Thursday of the month at 2pm ET. This monthly call is attended by KEEMA members from K12 and members from state universities and the Kentucky Community and Technical College system along with energy/sustainability school professionals from other states. KEEMA’s August call for example had participants from the University of Kentucky, Bellarmine University, KCTCS, and School Facility leaders from as far away as Arkansas. These monthly KEEMA web-conferences are made possible by assistance from the USGBC’s Center for Schools which provides KEEMA with the use of their WebEx software for these conferences at no cost.

 

Unfortunately, the school districts without an energy manager are usually the ones with the greatest needs and opportunities and therefore a major part of KEEMA mission is to reach out to these districts and offer assistance. The KEEMA Energy Education, Operations, Lighting, and Performance Contracting best-practice committees are available for offering skilled end-user consulting on upcoming projects to any school district free of charge.