Alumni Profile

You’d expect the environment and terrorism to get a lot of play in the newspaper, but how about in a building blueprint? Well, when the U.S. State Department builds an embassy or a consulate these days, its engineers pay heed to both concerns, adopting new technologies and innovations in diplomatic buildings all over the world. John Smithson (BS 2005 ME) is one such State Department engineer. In his two years there so far, he has contributed to designs that are making America’s homes away from home more energy efficient and also better protected.

What does a mechanical engineer do for the State Department?

I work for a bureau titled Overseas Building Operations, and OBO helps design, construct, and maintain the U.S. embassies and consulates. In the Mechanical Engineering Branch, we have several responsibilities. For example, we help design energy conservation measures into critical mechanical and HVAC systems. The State Department has six regions to simplify diplomatic approaches. The six regions are European and Eurasian Affairs (EUR), African Affairs (AF), East Asian and Pacific Affairs (EAP), Near Eastern Affairs (NEA), South and Central Asian Affairs (SCA), and Western Hemisphere Affairs (WHA). I am assigned to WHA which incorporates North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean.

So you have a whole hemisphere to cover.

How is the department making embassies more environmentally friendly?

Our branch has responsibility for an energy conservation program. We have direct funding for rehabilitation projects and new initiatives that will provide energy conservation measures.

For Panama, and this is true for all new embassy compounds, we have implemented variable frequency drives on rotating machinery and modulating control valves with a state-of-the-art control system.  This allows us to operate the entire mechanical system at less than full capacities based on the required cooling, heating, and ventilation needs, thereby allowing us to save energy and costly resources.

The new embassy in Sofia, Bulgaria achieved Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, which is our first LEED certified building. One thing we require of all our new embassy compound contracts is that the design be conducted such that you can achieve and maintain a LEED certification. Integrating sustainability and energy conservation initiatives into the design is a significant portion of LEED criteria. Especially with the mechanical systems, you can show that you are saving water or electricity or pursuing mitigation of fossil fuel energy sources.

Our first photovoltaic installation was in Geneva which was completed about two years ago. We now have a contract awarded to install solar panels at the embassy in Abuja, Nigeria. This is especially significant when we have an embassy that is in a third world area which doesn’t have a reliable electric supply. We then generate our own power through generators and consequently burn a large amount of fossil fuels. Now if we are generating power 24 hours, 7 days a week, how can we offset that? One such way is through these solar panel installations.

What’s driving this move toward sustainability?

The ultimate driving force is an executive order issued by President Bush this past January.  It requires a 3 percent reduction in energy consumption per year by 2015 for federal buildings. This can be achieved by a 3 percent reduction per year or a lump sum 30 percent reduction. Additionally though, OBO has people who care about the environment and who want to reduce our carbon footprint by working on new technologies and by thinking in innovative ways.

I bet your job involves a lot of travel.

By accounting both for concerns about the environment and about terrorism, these buildings seem to be embodiments of current events.

That’s definitely correct and that actually gets into one of my other responsibilities. I am a representative from OBO who sits on an interagency working group, the Technical Support Working Group (TSWG). TSWG sponsors research and development efforts for counterterrorism technology. OBO has a seat at the table because we are potential end users of the products that are the results of these efforts.

I suppose one only has to think back to the Kenya embassy bombing to see why.

Nairobi, Kenya and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania are very significant in terms of what we do now and how our bureau operates. After those instances, Congress required new security measures never seen before by embassies and consulates. That partially resulted in our new embassy construction program. We were constructing 1-2 new embassies a year. We now construct 5-10 new embassies a year.

So how did you go from Stanford to the State Department?

I had visited Washington DC one summer and I loved the area. When I got back to campus in the fall I targeted my internship search for businesses or organizations which had offices in DC. I went to the October career fair. I never would have thought that a mechanical engineer would be needed by the State Department but I spoke to the recruiter, who was an Ambassador in Residence at Cal Berkeley. She was doing the recruiting for Stanford. I flat out asked her, “I’m looking to move to Washington DC, does the State Department hire mechanical engineers?” And she said, yes I can think of a couple of bureaus. She encouraged me to submit my internship application and I was selected. I interned for OBO in the summer of 2004.

Was anything you learned here particularly valuable in your work now?

Basically the general principles of thermodynamics and heat transfer. Advanced Thermal Systems (ME 140) was my favorite mechanical engineering class and really taught me to take a systems approach to mechanical engineering.