Meet Paul Spiegel, Vice Chair of Chester County's Environmental and Energy Advisory Board
Winter 2023
Paul Spiegel is not afraid of building big things. He started his career as a structural engineer and worked his way up to being Mid Atlantic VP at a firm managing QA/QC for major construction projects like the Wells Fargo Center, Kimmel Center, and Vanguard's Malvern campus. He had the opportunity to start a Philadelphia office for this firm, and within a year and half he had built the office from just himself to 27 staff, and had landed major projects including the construction of Citizen's Bank Park.
He stumbled into the building energy management field serendipitously: while working in design and construction he had the opportunity through his company's contract with Walmart to get training to use an infrared camera to detect leaks after a new Walmart is constructed. The person running the training was involved in building energy optimization, and Paul was fascinated. For the next year he spent his vacations apprenticing with this person, who became his mentor, and in 2006 after much deliberation and a few overt "signs", he decided to start his own firm, Practical Energy Solutions (PES). Paul jokes, "I have Walmart to thank for getting me into the energy field." PES recently merged with Spotts, Stevens and McCoy, a family-owned multidisciplinary engineering firm, so they now have the capability to provide design services to support their energy audit and energy strategic planning reports through SSM Group.
Paul recollects his early days at PES and how things are different now. Not many organizations went for PES's business offering to perform operational assessments of HVAC and control systems (building re-tuning) where they charged 50% of the 2 year energy cost savings that they generated with no capital investment required. The energy reduction and savings sounded too good to be true. "Energy was cheap, and no one was really thinking about how much they paid for energy," he noted. Now, most of his clients, which include municipalities, schools, and commercial building owners, have adopted goals that require energy reduction, transition to renewable energy, or net zero emissions. "Not many people know how to reach their goals when they set them," said Paul, "so PES helps them figure it out."
Paul feels a personal imperative to connect his work with a mission and to have an impact. He uses storytelling and behavioral science to empower his clients to change behaviors to reduce their energy consumption and implement energy transition plans his firm helps them create. He believes deeply in volunteerism and service, and serves or has served on many boards, including the Chester County Economic Development Council and its Smart Energy Initiative; the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia; and Delaware County's Sustainability Council. Additionally, he served on West Goshen Township's Planning Commission for 15 years and its Sewer Authority for 13 years until he moved to a different municipality.
One of Paul's favorite things he's done as part of Chester County's EEAB is to help moderate the public presentation of the draft Climate Action Plan in 2021. The virtual meeting had well over 100 attendees, and there were lots of questions, "most of which were technical and directly related to building energy, and I was the one answering a lot of those questions. It felt really good- like I was really contributing to the solution."
When Paul isn't working to reduce building energy consumption, you can find him playing guitar in one of the two local bands he's a part of (one of which he's been playing in for 27 years) or playing in a pick-up soccer league. Paul has been a Chester County resident since the age of 5, and he grew up in Tredyffrin Township.