Building Energy Exchange St. Louis Director, Malachi Rein!

WELCOME: Building Energy Exchange St. Louis Director, Malachi Rein!

We are excited to welcome the new Building Energy Exchange St. Louis Director Malachi Rein! Welcome to the Green Buildings Are Better community and Missouri Gateway team, Malachi! To help get to know Malachi (Mal-uh-ki) our Engagement and Outreach Committee asked a few Member Spotlight questions. Here’s Malachi…

My name is Malachi Rein and I have a B.S. in Architectural Engineering which means that I have the technical capacity to understand buildings through design, construction, and operations. I have also studied communications which I hope will help our message resonate with everyone we interact with. My work experience brings a Facilities Management/Owner’s Representative perspective as the Building Energy Exchange St. Louis Director.

So much of our work is with people, pure and simple.

We can sustain our health and planet while lowering operational costs. We can connect resources that are often desperately needed to people and communities. This work will create a lasting investment that frees up capital and creates healthier, happier lives. Ultimately, we need a continuation of the paradigm shift in the built environment to bring sustainable building principles to the hearts and habits of our society.

Our goals require buy-in from building owners and managers. Our success is built on qualified expertise from design, construction, and operations teams. We have our work cut out for us, but it is such positive, tangible, and impactful work.

Sustainability Passon:

Buildings are so much to people. At a base level they shelter us and provide a safe haven. They also serve as a place of self-expression from the small and personally important details we surround ourselves with to their place as the background fabric of our communities.

We spend our lives in and around buildings with many of our most defining memories and experiences attached to these places and the people in our lives bringing them alive.

Our buildings also have great capacity to hold us back when they impact our health and wellbeing. Difficulties in life can be made so much harder when the bills are too much or the solace of our space is broken by unforeseen events. It is a delicate balance. The good news is, we can invest in our buildings so that more of our lives exist around what we want to love and appreciate. In equal measure we can also sustain the ability for our children and beyond to live healthy and meaningful lives.

Most meaningful experience with USGBC & the built environment:

I was able to participate in a number of trainings and certificate programs that I greatly enjoyed with USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council). These provided transferrable skills and perspectives that enriched not only my professional performance, but that of those I worked with and the tasks we worked on together. My green building certificate and training programs also brought me closer to some of the staff and partners I now have the great privilege of working with in the role as our new Building Energy Exchange St. Louis Director.

What will most impact the future of green building:

Passion and community. There is a future where we don’t get the work done. That is not a future that any of us will enjoy. There are so many good, smart, and talented people in this community that, together, we can chart a path of building energy solutions that work for everyone.

Favorite LEED Project:

I had the pleasure of spending some time in the Y2E2 building at Stanford (LEED Platinum®, awaiting performance data). It felt as though they put their efforts behind their principles while maintaining the architectural form and balance of their existing aesthetic.

Favorite place in the Gateway region

The viewing platform of the Compton Hill Water Tower, which is currently closed until it can be repaired. At the top of 198 stairs, the windows provide a cross breeze and a panoramic perspective that has been static for a century and a quarter; a stone in the river of time as the water that is Saint Louis flows around it.