We pride ourselves on our software — but behind it is a team of professional engineers with expansive domain expertise that steer our product and help our customers learn about their buildings and find savings. This month we're highlighting what it is like to work as a Building Systems Engineer at Aquicore.

Gary Kienzle is one of our Senior Building Systems Engineers and has been working in the mechanical industry for over 10 years now. His interest in pursuing the engineering field sparked from his love of math and science. The engineering field felt like the perfect combination of both so naturally he felt it would be the perfect fit for him as a career path. Gary chose to specialize in Mechanical Engineering due to the variety of applications where it is used. After his first internship with a Mechanical Contractor in South Florida, Gary then decided to specialize in HVAC.

Working for a SaaS company, Gary has the opportunity to work with many different systems across the country and not just those specifically in Florida. It can be a great challenge sometimes because there is always something new to work with and figure out. No two buildings are the same even if they are next to each other. This keeps the work diverse and challenging since he never knows what they may come across when Aquicore deploys into more buildings. An example Gary mentioned was when Aquicore recently deployed in a building that utilized river water for their HVAC system instead of cooling towers. This was the first time Gary and everyone involved experienced a system that ran that way. The problems Gary solves for Aquicore are those that are experienced by our clients. He uses the data through the Aquicore platform to identify simple issues such as incorrect schedules to more complicated ones that involve how to control and sequence central plants. This provides additional insight into the buildings to look for projects that improve the comfort and reliability of a building as well as reducing utility consumption. 

A typical day for Gary would include reviewing some of our load analytics clients and looking for any potential energy savings projects. He also performs and reviews scans regularly for our HVAC analytics clients. This would include reviewing the plant efficiency, AHU operation, and the overall performance of the HVAC system. When an issue is found, Gary will then go through the data to find the source of the issue and put it in a project with potential solutions to be implemented. There are usually meetings scheduled on a regular basis with our partners at the buildings Gary oversees to review any projects or issues that have been found. These meetings are usually with the buildings engineers and have shown to be extremely helpful because they are able to provide even more insight to the buildings.  

Gary is inspired by the challenge of this job and knowing the effort he is putting in is resulting in positive changes at these buildings. He enjoys being able to use his engineering background, his experience, and his knowledge to discover issues and create solutions. Gary also mentioned that he enjoys working with the engineers on-site to correct and improve how the buildings run and also save energy. 

The second employee we would like to highlight is Carlos Blanco who is one of our Building Systems Engineers. Carlos has been in the mechanical industry for over 30 years. He has a background in the marine field working with ship manufacturing and repairs and has a vast knowledge of engines, transmissions, pumps, controls, electrical, and some electronics. Over time Carlos realized the mechanics of HVAC are similar to his previous experience with mechanical systems and wanted to learn more about it. Carlos has always been fascinated by figuring out how things work and pursuing a path in engineering allowed him to do that as a career.

Carlos found that working at a software company he is constantly learning and never knew how well his skills from his previous experience would translate. At Aquicore, Carlos finds solutions to any issues that may arise in a building. One of his main responsibilities is to support our Senior Engineers by scanning the HVAC side of buildings and creating reports for the issues he finds. There is a great amount of information to review in a single building. Analyzing that information to see how the building is performing is one part, then Carlos also has to analyze the information to see if all the team's calculations and mapping are correct on our side. When he finds an issue on a building's HVAC side, he creates a project and adds his notes and comments as to where he thinks the problem may be occurring. This report will then be passed along to the senior engineer in charge of that building for review. The issues he finds on the mapping and calculations side he tries to correct himself or work with the Product team to find the solution. 

“One of the main things I've learned and continue to learn is how to put my knowledge to use to analyze how the mechanics of ships work and use the same theory in the HVAC field, they both have controls, pumps, temperature sensors, pressure sensors, loads, air volume sensors, consumption (be it fuel or electricity) and the list goes on,” said Carlos.

Similar to Gary, Carlos is also inspired by finding solutions to problems that are difficult and challenging for him. Constantly being able to learn more about how different buildings work and being able to use all the information he has to solve problems aligns with the reasons why he wanted to pursue this career in the first place. Carlos is happy he has the opportunity to work in an industry he has a passion for.

Interested in joining our team? Check out our careers page.