Late in 2020, Byron took a position to start a commissioning department within a full service architecture firm. As the Director of Commissioning, Byron leveraged his 20 years of experience and gained the trust of project teams in the Midwest, allowing him to share the ACG Commissioning Process with their projects. Byron brought not only commissioning, but also MEPT System Troubleshooting to clients large and small. His role also allowed him to share the benefits of a robust commissioning process, from project conception through completion, with internal Project Teams and Clients alike. He and his young team were able to engage Project Teams with custom commissioning processes for projects in the healthcare, laboratory, higher education, multi-family and commercial kitchen markets.

Byron relocated back to the Heartland, working with local Teams to bring value through a proven commissioning process. The project outcomes were better not only for occupant move-in, but first year operations as well. His skills also proved beneficial for troubleshooting MEPT Systems for Clients of new and old facilities. With outcomes minimizing issues and maximizing potential operational savings.  Byron worked hand-in-hand with facility operators to ensure systems and/or automation integrations were functioning properly. 

In the short 2-½ years of employment, Byron was responsible for staffing a Cx team to three, teaching them the process of commissioning that brings value to Project Teams. He provided commissioning services for nine projects in various phases. Internal duties included hiring and training new staff, creating internal processes for tracking projects and staffing needs. Byron also enjoyed being the Business Development Lead for the commissioning department.

Byron joined a consulting commissioning team in their effort to build a robust commissioning department for the healthcare market. He assisted a national healthcare group by drafting standard commissioning specifications utilizing standard industry information. Byron performed functional testing of a 2.1 million square foot hospital project in New Orleans. This propelled him into the Healthcare and High Containment Laboratory Commissioning markets. 

Utilizing web-based commissioning tools for transparency, Byron continued to build and train Project Teams, helping them understand the commissioning process. This training provided accurate information to make the process valuable to the End Users AND Installation Teams. For the next six years Byron worked on many large and small high containment laboratory projects. These included a BSL4 which upgraded its BMS Controls while still performing research in the adjacent lab space. His experience led to successful testing and documentation of eight high containment laboratory projects. 

Byron managed project finances, technical documentation creation, site management, labor needs, and project meetings – both site and executive level. During this time, Byron continued to improve the Cx process and communication between Commissioning and Installation Teams. Functional performance testing was refined to minimize site time and maximize value to End Users. His teams worked to standardize the processes for documenting annual HVAC Failure testing for certifying agencies.

In this role, Byron was responsible for proposal creation, equipment management, schedule creation, field management of union laborers, and quality control of multiple HVAC and plumbing heavy projects. These projects were performed with Byron’s Team as the Prime Contractor, allowing him to manage all subcontracts for the project. Byron led projects communicating with the Owner, Architect/Engineering Teams, as well as coordinating the equipment deliveries and Union Labor Crews with his site Superintendent and Foreman. 

Byron was responsible for material orders and delivery, project planning, and assisting heavily in RFP/Q responses with the team. This role included equipment selection, purchase, and start-up coordination. Byron also provided management of specialty contractors and collection/submission of O&M packages to Clients. Another responsibility was management of a Job Order Contract (JOC) for a large university in the area. 

Joining the custom HVAC Sales Team, Byron worked with Consulting Engineers to assist in HVAC design. He verified equipment selections were accurate and met the project needs, confirmed equipment was an acceptable size/weight, determined sequence of operations, as well as specification drafting and scheduling assistance in tandem with the Engineering Teams. 

Once a project’s equipment was sold, Byron worked with the installing contractors on submittal creation/approvals, start-up needs, and building automation system controls integrating with the building systems. Byron was accountable for pricing, quotes, and accounts receivable. He also handled communication between the factory and clients related to the equipment production timeframes, equipment start-up needs, and integration with building automation systems.

As a designer for a custom HVAC manufacturer in the Kansas City region, Byron specialized in packaged direct expansion (DX) cooling with DX reheat and gas heating triple-deck multizone equipment. The design of this equipment included fan selection, coil selection, coil circuiting, low voltage power design, electrical design, AHU Casing design, base-rail sizing, as well as sound and weight calculations. 

Byron designed the sequence of operations and control panels for packaged equipment, created submittal/shop drawing information, and worked with local sales teams ensuring equipment was accurate to customer specifications and needs.