Now that most of the country has dug itself out of the Blizzard of 2010, we can reflect. Other than shoveling snow two times a day, not much changed in the Cleveland area. A couple meetings were postponed or canceled, but life moved on. Travel a couple hours south, and it was a different story. Columbus has limited resources for snow removal, and they got a lot of snow - at times, more than Cleveland. We do a lot of work in the Baltimore/Washington DC area. They had so much snow everything shut down for a week! My relatives in Virginia were snowed in for at least a couple days. Record snowfall in Dallas, Texas - 12″. There was one day when every state except Hawaii had snow - this is a very rare occurrence.
What’s your blizzard story?
For years a significant volume of our engineering service has been in industrial or medical laboratories. Many of our clients and business partners probably don’t realize that we have created our own working laboratory here in Cleveland, Ohio. We’re not developing sticky paper or haircare products, working with mitochondrial DNA or cloning critters. But rather, in our office we installed products from a variety of manufacturers allowing us to implement products that we tend to specify. As staff in the office, we tend to take for granted the fact that we work in a laboratory. Last week we took advantage of our space when we held a client meeting at our office. 
A new client is building an office space in Cleveland. The plan for the office is similar to office, a converted warehouse with high ceilings and some exposed utilities. By holding the meeting here, we could help the client visualize the way the space works, demonstrate a variety of lighting options - direct, indirect and combination direct/indirect, fluorescent; halogen, LED, and Metal Halide; programmable lighting controls and daylight sensing controls - HVAC controls, and sustainable design practices. The client was appreciative of the opportunity to tour our “laboratory” and see how she might incorporate some of these design ideas into her own office showroom. 
It’s important to translate architectural/engineering drawings into reality. I think especially in the early stages of an engineer’s career (and probably similarly for an architect) the opportunity to see how the objects they are drawing are installed and eventually work in a building. The way something is designed on paper can’t always be accomplished in reality, due to a variety of issues including conflicts with other systems. When an engineer can walk around the office to see how something works or is installed, it can only be beneficial in the grand scheme of things. 
Tec is starting it’s first project in the State of Maine. I thought I would take this opportunity to provide some random facts I found about Maine.
- The first known record of the name appears in an Aug. 10, 1622 land charter to Sir Ferdinando Gorges and Captain John Mason.
- Maine’s Moosehead Lake is the largest lake wholly in New England.
- Maine also has several unique geographical features. Machias Seal Island and North Rock, off its easternmost point, are claimed by both the U.S. and Canada and are within one of four areas between the two countries whose sovereignty is still in dispute, but is the only one of the disputed areas containing land.
- The Northwest Aroostook, Maine unorganized territory in the northern part of the state has an area of 2,668 square miles (6,910 km2) and a population of 27, or one person for every 100 square miles.
- The original inhabitants of the territory that is now Maine were Algonquian-speaking Wabanaki peoples including the Abenaki, Passamaquoddy, and Penobscots.
- The province within its current boundaries became part of Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1652.
- Maine became the 23rd state on March 15, 1820.
- As of 2008, Maine has an estimated population of 1,321,504.
- Maine is the number one exporter of blueberries and toothpicks. Maine produces 25% of all blueberries in North America, making it the largest blueberry producer in the world. The largest toothpick manufacturing plant in the United States is located in Strong, Maine. The Strong Wood Products Incorporated plant produces twenty million toothpicks a day.
- Maine is also the home of The Jackson Laboratory, the world’s largest non-profit mammalian genetic research facility and the world’s largest supplier of genetically purebred mice.
- The Shawshank Redemption, an award-winning 1993 movie, was set in Maine.
- Famous Businesses from Maine: Leon Leonwood (L.L.) Bean, clothing maker and retailer, Milton Bradley, board game inventor
- State animal: Moose
- State beverage: Moxie
I will be presenting at the next Illuminating Engineering Society program in Cleveland held on February 17, 2010 at 11:45 at Hilton
Garden Inn Downtown Cleveland.
The presentation is Laws, Standards and Codes OH MY! These are current code
topics that everyone in the lighting industry should be aware of when
creating, supporting or supplying for a lighting design. For more information on the program, see the February
Lumen Press.