Malcolm Verdict, associate director of the TEES Energy Systems Laboratory (ESL) and a certified energy manager (CEM), has been selected for admission into the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) Energy Managers Hall of Fame. AEE is an international organization of more than 15,000 professionals in 84 countries and is widely recognized for its energy certification programs.
This high honor is reserved by AEE for those individuals who have distinguished themselves with a lifetime of achievement in the energy engineering profession. Verdict was inducted into the AEE Hall of Fame at the 2011 World Energy Engineering Congress on Friday (Oct. 14) at the Navy Pier Convention Center in Chicago.
Verdict’s career spans three decades of implementing visionary, highly effective energy management policies and programs with lasting, significant impacts at the state, national and international levels. He is known for his ability to recognize an opportunity, obtain stakeholder buy-in, garner political support and funding and implement effective energy-efficiency programs.
Verdict joined The Texas A&M University System in 2002 after 10 years in Washington D.C. as an energy efficiency advocate and works closely with federal, state and local governments on energy efficiency and environmental policy issues, representing the ESL and its team of technical experts in energy efficiency technologies.
Verdict has more than 30 years in the energy efficiency and sustainable development arena and has been widely recognized by the Western Governors Association, the Texas governor’s Energy Management Office and others as an expert on these matters. In the early 1990s, he helped establish the largest state-funded loan program at the time for financing energy efficiency improvements for state and local governments which has grown to a $200 million fund today.
He received the State Energy Managers Award in Texas from the Industrial Energy Technology Conference in 1989 and served as deputy director of the Texas State Energy Office in 1991 where he created the $98 million LoanSTAR energy loan program, helped craft the first energy demand side management rules for regulated utilities in Texas and implemented the state’s first energy-efficient building standards for state buildings. From 1992 to 2001, Verdict served as co-founder and chair of the National Home Energy Rating Council in Washington, D.C. that was composed of states, homebuilders, energy raters, federal agencies and mortgage lenders. In 2001, he served as a representative of the energy efficiency and renewable energy communities on President George W. Bush’s "transition team" for the U.S. Department of Energy.
Verdict’s lifetime achievements in the field of energy management have resulted directly or indirectly in over $225 million in documented savings; the creation of the first national home energy labeling standard and energy efficient mortgage program at Fannie Mae; the adoption of the first EPA Energy Star guidelines for Habitat for Humanity, one of the nation’s largest homebuilders; and helping establish ground breaking procedures for monitoring energy retrofits in commercial buildings.
Verdict holds a Bachelor of Science in math and engineering sciences from the U.S. Air Force Academy, a master’s degree in business administration from Louisiana Tech University, and a commercial banking certificate from Southern Methodist University’s Graduate School of Banking. He also holds a commercial pilot license and was a USAF F-4 fighter pilot in Vietnam.