Being a mentor to young professionals embodies the pay-it-forward concept. Think of the potential impact if one chose to mentor three people, and they then chose to mentor nine more people, and those went on to mentor 27 more people. The results could be prodigious. Successful mentoring programs have become valuable, organizational assets. In a…

LED (light-emitting diode) technology is moving fast, and with justification, some facility managers have viewed it with a wary eye. Some LEDs on the market do not perform as promised, and the technology is changing rapidly. But new developments from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) now make it easier for facility managers to find LEDs that…

Describes development of the "M-Quality" program at the University of Michigan: a continuous quality-improvement approach tailored to the school's plant operations. Discusses the program's planning stages and the problems encountered and lessons learned from the process. (GR)

Describes how American University's facility, financial, and information system managers created a comprehensive asset-identification, condition, and valuation database. Discusses assemblage of the team, project design, lessons learned, the use of barcodes to track materials, and the payoff of being able to generate specific numbers for budgeting…

Describes a state-of-the-art energy management program at Wake Forest University (North Carolina) designed to include all on-campus property, and explores the various aspects of cost/benefit analysis in its development. A campus profile, electrical and thermal energy analyses, and a summary table of utility budget data are included. (GR)