AEA

Since late 1999, I have been co-chair with Jeanette Raichyk of the SW Ohio Alternate Energy Association (AEA). I was president from 1995 to 1999. I discovered AEA by accident in the early 1980s when I heard a radio ad for a "solar home tour". I went on the tour and immediately joined. AEA was and still is a local Greater Cincinnati group where one can get together or communicate by email to talk and hear about renewables and alternatives, often with people who are sharing what they've done or are doing. Many of my local homes have been featured on AEA's past hometours. I've also hosted my own last 2 homes on these tours, as well as presented many of AEA's local meetings.

AEE
www.aeecenter.org

I've been residential chairperson for the S.W. Ohio Chapter of the Association of Energy Engineers (AEE) since the early 2000s. Prior to that, I held the chapter's education, secretary and treasurer positions. SW Ohio AEE honored me as its 1994 Energy Engineer of the Year, for my design of a passive solar home in Loveland Ohio for a client who had been suffering from sick building syndrome in her prior home for 13 years. Not only is the home super-efficient, very well daylit, very comfortable and inexpensive to operate, it is also a healthy home environment in which my client has lived since 1991.

SW Ohio AEE recognized me as 2004 Environmental Engineer of the Year for designing, operating and documenting the performance of my solar-powered off-grid office since November 2001. I also received SW Ohio AEE's 1997 Environmental Project Award for design and educational documentation of a solar electric power installation in an outdoor wooded theater at YMCA Camp Kern in Oregonia, Ohio. In November 1998, I was awarded the 1998 Ohio Governors Award for Excellence and Energy Efficiency in the Education Category for this same project.

In 1990, soon after passing AEE's "Certified Energy Manager" or "CEM" program, I received the 1990 Energy Project Award for "The Passive High Performance House", the title of his documentation and presentation about my residential design and energy engineering of a passive solar home in Cleves Ohio to achieve passive performance outcomes. This same home was featured in SOLAR TODAY magazine in September/October 1998 in an article by Burke Miller, titled "Solar Living Under Cloudy Skies."

In January 2007, I became a "Certified Sustainable Development Professional" or "CSDP", an AEE program, but more focused on resource and pollution flows than energy costs.

IDA

www.darksky.org

I joined the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA) in the late 1990s when I became more concerned, as an amateur astronomer, with careless night lighting in and around Midwest cities and suburbs, especially Greater Cincinnati. IDA is a group of similarly concerned lighting experts and astronomy enthusiasts who are working on this issue both at the technical level and in regional politics around the USA. At the technical level, IDA offers recommendations about outdoor lighting. At the political level, it works with regional groups and governments to change laws regarding public and private lighting. Especially interesting to me is the fact that IDA issues overlap into energy and environment, since careless (i.e. wasteful) lighting involves unnecessary energy use and related pollution.

Kentucky Solar Partnership (KSP) & A-SPI

www.kysolar.org/ www.a-spi.org

In 2002 I joined the Solar Partnership, which is part of Appalachia - Science in the Public Interest (A-SPI), of which I'd been a member since 1993. A-SPI is a non-profit consumer education organization similar to AEA, but more focused on and centered in rural areas of central and southern Kentucky. A-SPI publishes technical bulletins on how to think about and implement a wide variety of topics, from wastewater to drinking water, from alternate construction techniques to sustainable forestry, from solar cooking to solar water-heating and passive solar. As solar became a larger part of A-SPI's agenda and member interest, A-SPI formed the Solar Partnership specifically to handle education about solar use in Kentucky. It also promotes people and businesses in Kentucky which have solar expertise. The Solar Partnership's earliest success was getting Kentucky's net-metering law passed. More recently, the Partnership has been working on a 'solar guide' publication for consumers, especially in Kentucky. I've been a contributor and editor in this endeavor.

John F. Robbins, CEM CSDP

3519 Moffett Road

Morningview, KY 41063-8748

Phone: (859) 363-0376

E-mail: johnfrobbins@insightbb.com