Staff Spotlight: Teja Crawford
By Jordan Klotzle
Verdical Group’s Staff Spotlight series highlights the incredible contributions that each of our team members make through their expertise. The series is also a great way to delve into what our team members do on a day-to-day basis to mitigate the climate crisis.
Meet Energy Analyst Teja Crawford, who joined the Verdical Group team in September 2022! Teja received her B.S. in Sustainable Built Environments with an emphasis on buildings from the University of Arizona, and she is also a LEED Green Associate. As part of VG’s Energy & Atmosphere team, Teja performs daylight modeling and supports energy modeling and life-cycle assessments.
A typical workday for Teja often includes running daylighting simulations to assess the natural lighting in our clients’ building projects, and then writing up her findings in deliverable reports. Daylight modeling identifies areas where natural light can be used to supplement or replace artificial lighting, helping to reduce heat gain and overall energy consumption.
One particularly memorable project for Teja recently was helping to run daylight modeling for the Hollywood Recreation Center, a gymnasium owned by the City of Los Angeles. Verdical Group is working with Lehrer Architects to pursue LEED v4 BD+C Gold Certification and a Zero Energy Building certification for this 13,000-square-foot facility, and daylight modeling plays an important role in optimizing energy usage to help the project achieve as many LEED points as possible.
Teja enjoyed participating in the project and tackling some of its unique challenges; for instance, she had the chance to learn how to model the diffused lighting provided by the gymnasium’s tubular skylights, which were a new deviation from the windows she is accustomed to working with.
Teja’s favorite part about working at Verdical Group?
“It’s hard to choose just one,” she admitted. “The people are all really supportive and I love that.” Teja also enjoys the environment at Verdical Group and feels that she is gaining valuable experience in a supportive atmosphere that gives her “space to grow and learn.”
Click here learn more about daylight modeling and the many other services our team provides, or click here to find out about employment opportunities with Verdical Group.
Still have questions? We have answers! Please reach out via our contact page, and a member of our team will connect with you as soon as possible.
