Author: Lindsey Burbee

Cultural Rules and the Global Economy

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

Between Milford, Ohio and Barcelona, Spain we have thousands of miles for you, kilometers for me, gallons of salted water for you, liters for me, pounds of earth for you and kilograms for me…

We have different ways to talk about the same thing, but sometimes for different things we try to use the same way, what is a common mistake…

In terms of business, like the stone falling on the water, any new project will have an infinite number of concentric circles. The stone can be bigger or smaller, but always will generate a wave, big or small as well.

We will always face a person, with a better or worst day, with more or less problems, at home or at work, it doesn’t matter, with a culture, an education, inside of an organization, with a culture and an education, sometimes with people above, sometimes under, sometimes both, in a county of a region in a state of a country integrated with the economy of 28 other countries, with special regulations at different levels, different languages, different cultures…

Too complicated to be true? This is every single day of a sales in a global economy. Sometimes with more or less circles around each project, but this is the cruel reality nonetheless.

In this scenario, it becomes fully necessary having an internal decoder, armed with miles of knowledge, gallons of passion and pounds of personal skills, but also kilometers experience, liters of patients and kilograms of attitude.

How do you face this? It is easy, we build a rules structure trying include what we consider is “general” or “normal”. With these rules we don’t need to think about processes (internal or external) and we can be focused on what it is important: making a global impact.

But what happens when it is out of what we consider “normal” in our home culture, but acceptable in others? Here is when we need to show how flexible we are. It must not be a drama. This is life, different people thinking different. However, it’s important to keep the mission in mind and work towards a common good for ourselves, fellow man, and planet.

Being flexible is not meaning breaking the rules, because within these rules there are some red lines we must never cross in any culture, but we need to adapt ourselves to the situation. If we just can see the shadow of a tree is covering us, we will never be able to see the forest. We need to balance our flexibility with the opportunity cost and the risk it supposes.

So, if you know the rules, because they are yours, and within these rules exist the red lines, it is just about how flexible you are to get the job completed. And everyone has their own way, their own flexibility. There is no miraculous recipe, just training your own flexibility to convince the Polish mechanical contractor and the French end-user with different arguments to be a collective success, because they have diametrically opposed interests for the same product or solution.

To be truly global, you must be global in your thoughts and open to cultural norms wherever you may go.

Customer Experience – The Key Differentiator

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

Good is no longer good enough! It seems it was only yesterday that every business claimed the key to winning customers was the quality of product or service they deliver. Here at Melink, we’re changing the game to focus on the customer experience! According to a Walker study, by the year 2020, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator. So, what is customer experience you ask? Customer experience is your customers’ perception of how the company treats them. These perceptions affect their behaviors and build memories and feelings, and may drive their loyalty. In other words, if they like you and continue to like you, they are going to do business with you and recommend you to the others. With customer experience being the new battlefield, companies are changing their approach, offerings, and business practices. Sales teams are working harder to learn their customers and their customer’s business, so they can create the “wow”. Hotel managers, restaurant chains, and even doctors’ offices are focused on creating an experience that knocks their customers socks off, instead of just standard practices.

These days, social media gives the consumer a lot of power and impact. There’s an instant feedback loop and the cluster of data starts to create the company’s reputation. For example, if you get on Amazon to buy a new bike for your son, you’re likely going to check the performance stars and the customer reviews. Any of those reviews can be the difference between you purchasing that bike and moving on to a different bike. If you’re looking for a surgeon and every website has them at 3 out of 5 stars, you’re likely going to move on to the next guy. He may be the best surgeon in the land, but his rude receptionist and office staff have poor bedside manner and make people miserable when they go in to see him. If you go to a fast-food burger joint, how likely is it that you’re going to write a positive Yelp review if you pull up to the drive thru, order your food, pay the correct amount, get the correct change and correct order, and you leave in a timely manner? Probably never! They didn’t go above and beyond and create the “wow”! If you want to improve the customer experience, there must be a “wow”! Recently I went through a drive thru myself and was caught off guard with my experience. When I pulled up it was raining. Normally I would get soaked reaching out to hand over the money. This time the cashier stuck an umbrella out the window, so I wouldn’t get drenched. Super small, super easy, but I was impressed! I’ve never seen it before in my time on this earth and he was focused on my experience! I did write a review and I tipped a drive-thru cashier for the first time!

Millennials are changing the game and companies need to embrace it. Sure, the entitlement is out of control, but the business practice changes are not all bad. If you’re focusing only on your product or service and not how your customer feels about the entire experience, you’re in trouble! Some of the large hotel companies are incentivizing their General Managers on customer experience and guest loyalty. The baby-boomers want to talk, interact, have face-to-face experiences with nice people. The millennials want to check-in swiftly to the hotel with no hiccups and have issues resolved quickly. Management needs to address all their consumer personas in a unique way to setup the individual customer experiences for success.

What happens if you fail to provide a positive customer experience? According to a recent study, 67% of customers mention bad experiences as a reason for churn and only 1 in 26 unhappy customers complain. That means companies not focused on the customer experience will lose customers well after it’s too late! Most of this is the result of what I refer to as “sales autopilot”. When you’re there trying to make it look like your product is perfect for them, without the data, you end up losing trust with them. Trust, brand and customer experience are all built on honesty. And honesty is knowing when your product won’t be a perfect fit for everyone. Therefore it’s so important to stop selling and start solving!

Since most companies will be expected to compete mainly on customer experience, organizations like Melink that focus on customer experience will stand out from the noise and win loyal customers over. One thing is for sure, if you want your customer to have an excellent customer experience and create a “wow” you must know your customers better than ever before! Here at Melink, my team and I are completing customer profiles and personas to improve individual experiences. Once you know your customers well enough, you can use that knowledge to personalize every interaction. Customers these days have more power and choice than ever before. Thus, we are responsible for understanding and acknowledging their needs. When people ask what we do, it shouldn’t be Test & Balance, Demand-Controlled Kitchen Ventilation (DCKV), Solar, or Geothermal, it should be creating the best customer experience in renewable and energy reduction markets for our customers!

Road-Tripping in a Non-Tesla 100% EV

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

Abraham Lincoln

I have the unique pleasure of working with an employee-owned organization, Melink Corporation, that is dedicated toward making the world a better place. Our vision is to help advance clean energy such that it transforms the world through improving our global economy, security and environment – for ourselves, our children and future generations.

Though energy efficiency and renewable energy are at the core of what we do, sustainability is central to who we are. If we don’t lead by example, who will? So, in addition to operating a Net-Zero LEED® Platinum headquarters facility, we have a super-green fleet of vehicles. Our National Network of Service Technicians each drive hybrid vehicles. Our parking lot has over twenty electric-vehicle charging stations. In total we have over forty hybrids and seventeen EVs in our fleet driven. 61% of our employees drive either hybrid or electric.

I, personally, drive a 2018 Chevy Bolt and have done so for about nine months. The car has a 238 EPA estimated range and does not have the luxury of accessing Tesla’s Supercharging Network. I have a 45 mile commute, one-way from my home to my office. Fortunately, by driving an EV, living in a home and working in an office that are both powered by renewable energy, my ‘electric gas’ is very clean. I have three young kids, and it is very important to my wife and I, that we set a good example; not only so we guide them toward making their own integrity-based decisions as they mature, but also so in a direct effort preserve their future. As Abraham Lincon said, You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.

This month was the first time I took the Bolt on a good old fashion, American road-trip. I knew it would be a challenge but as another President said, nothing in the world is worth doing unless it means effort pain and difficulty. Here’s how it was (and can be) done.

The Hardware. You’ve got to have an EV that has an extended range. Here’s a list, for your reference, of the longest range EVs on the market today. But you’ve also got to have the capacity for Level 3 charging. On the Chevy Bolt the hardware cost an incremental $750, from the factory. GM advertises 90 miles of charge in 30 minutes, up to the 80% mark and the speed begins to taper to protect the battery.

The Fuel. There are of course Plug-in Hybrid EVs such as the Chevy Volt and Honda Clarity. Those models have about 30 – 50 miles of battery capacity with traditional gasoline as a backup. This isn’t the kind of EV I’m talking about here; I’m talking about 100% electrons. And I must acknowledge that during my road trip the electrons pulled from the grid may be coming from brown-power sources; but not necessarily. Wal-Mart, for example, has solar on many of their locations. And one of the two EVgo stations I charged at was at a Wal-Mart. Nonetheless, what’s the advantage of driving an EV vs. a traditional internal-combustion engine that uses gasoline? For one, EVs convert about 60% of their energy from the grid to power at the wheels; gasoline only converts about 19% of the energy stored to the wheels. Also, electricity, even from a coal-fired power plant, is a domestic energy source. Finally, you can get your electricity from renewable sources such as solar and wind.

The Apps. Before making any long-distance road trip, pre-planning the locations of charging stations (and their distances from one another), is critical. There are a number of apps you can use to see what’s out there: PlugShare, ChargePoint, and EVgo are the ones I use.

The Infrastructure. EVgo is America’s largest Public Electric Vehicle Fast Charging Network, with over 1,000 chargers in 66 markets. As a non-Tesla driver, this network is vitally important for the emerging EV market.

The Planning. A few days before my trip from Southwest Ohio to Eastern Tennessee, a 350 mile commute, I identified two Level 3 Fast charging stations and one Level 2 charging station for my trip. The first Level 3 charger I stopped at was only 35 miles from my house, located at a Wal-Mart in Florence, Kentucky. I topped off and drove another 239 miles to Knoxville, Tennessee… quite literally almost no margin for error between charging stations. Fortunately, during my planning I learned of an EVgo charging station that’s being installed about 3/4 that distance, along I-75 near Williamsburg, Kentucky. So the infrastructure is continuing to develop. After making it to the next fast-charger in Knoxville… I had 8 miles to spare. Nonetheless, I made it. So I charged for about one hour (180 miles). While I waited I was able to eat lunch and catch-up on some work. Then I drove another 35 miles to my final destination, which was for business purposes There I stayed for about 30 hours, plugged in to a residential 120V outlet at 12 amps. I got my charge up to about 90% before making the return trip… back to Knoxville, then to Florence, then home. Similar to my first-leg, I made it back to the Florence charger with about 6 miles to spare.

Lessons Learned. For one, my tire pressure was relatively low when I left my house. It took the necessity of my thin battery margin to realize the impact it had on my mileage efficiency. So, I filled them almost to max-pressure and the Bolt was ‘intelligent’ enough to roll this new information into its algorithm, thus giving me an increased range by about 10 miles from where I was before. Second, I noticed that by turning off my air conditioning, the algorithm gave me another 10 mile boost in my range. Also, I tried to keep my speed (on I-75, no less) at around 65 mph. You’ll notice in this chart the relationship between speed and range; the faster you drive, the less efficient your mileage.

In order to change the world, we’ve got to do things differently. Otherwise, if we continue to do the same things, nothing will change. This trip wasn’t easy. An otherwise normal five-hour trip took me about seven-hours, one way. I didn’t want to leave the house at 5am and I certainly didn’t want to get home at 2am. But I wanted to demonstrate it could be done, in the hope that just maybe it inspires others to make the leap, not only to an EV, but to a brighter future.

Top 5 Negative Building Pressure Problems

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

The difference between outside air supplied to a building and air removed from inside a building is the building pressure.  Typically, a slightly positive (or more air being supplied than taken out) building pressure is wanted for most buildings.  Negative building pressure can cause many issues for customers from high energy costs to hot and cold spots in a building.  Here are the top five problems a building with negative pressure can experience:

  1. Difficulty Opening and Closing Doors:

One of the first signs that a building is negatively pressurized, is when the front door is not easily opened.  After finally opening the door to a negatively pressurized building, a large draft will be felt on your back as the door is slammed closed.  Because buildings are typically designed to be positively pressurized, you should feel a soft gust of air blowing outward when this is set properly.

  1. High Humidity:

If your building is negatively pressurized, the building will pull in unconditioned outside air through all openings including doors, windows, and other leaks in the structure. This is very noticeable in the summertime when outside humidity is especially high.  This can cause mold or mildew in the building.

  1. High Energy Costs:

Studies have shown that correcting negative building pressure can save a facility owner as much as 20% on their HVAC energy costs.  By ensuring your facility has a positive building pressure, you are avoiding unnecessary costs and maximizing comfort in the facility.

  1. Outside Debris:

In a facility that is negatively pressurized, owners are more likely to see outside debris being pulled into the facility through various openings. These items include, leaves, flies, dirt, as well as smells brought in from outside.  In many facilities, this could create major issues with production as the outside debris could be contaminating the products.

  1. Hot and Cold Spots:

Another symptom commonly noticed in buildings with negative building pressure is noticeable hot and cold spots that are created by the disrupted airflow.  This could cause the customers to become angry because they can’t reach a comfortable temperature in the building.  In a restaurant, this could also cause food at the counter to become cold.

Be Curious

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

The older I get and the more people I meet, the more it is confirmed in my mind that curiosity is a highly desirable trait.  Curiosity is a simple recipe for improving intelligence, persevering through hard times, and achieving meaningful goals.  Without curiosity, one is too easily content to settle for the status quo and not grow – personally or professionally.

A couple years ago, an executive friend shared with me that his Fortune 500 company specifically tests for curiosity when recruiting new talent.  The idea is, candidates who demonstrate curiosity are more likely to improve their education, training, and leadership ability.  They never stop reading and asking questions; and become more effective in their line of work as a result.

Of course, being curious is also a great way to build personal friendships and working relationships.  Have you ever met someone who loves to talk about themselves and their weekend, but never turn things around and ask about your kids or whatever?  I would bet they are not on your list of favorite people.  Curious people are naturally more understanding and fun to be with.

Curiosity is getting more attention and research all the time. The most recent issue of Harvard Business Review has made it a feature article as well.  According to HBR, curiosity can improve a firm’s adaptability and performance.

Additionally, this same article posits that curiosity leads to fewer decision-making errors.  A deeper level of analysis and number of options come from asking more questions.  Curiosity also reduces group conflict and leads to more open communication.  And it can mean viewing problems more creatively – with less stress.

Some people assume that asking questions in a meeting shows a lack of understanding, or that they are not as smart as other people in the room.  But the opposite is true.  Asking questions shows you are engaged, that you want to learn, and you care about the end-result.  Don’t be a bump-on-the-log that just attends but does not participate in meetings.  This is a waste of company time.

So be curious!  Every day, with every person, and in every challenge.  Experience the joy of finding new pathways to better relationships and success.  In fact, how can we live our core value of innovation at Melink – without being curious?

Melink: A Service Company

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

A few weeks ago my team and I had the pleasure of working directly with a customer who is expanding a very large and strategic program within their organization. I could tell the individual responsible for the program was carrying an incredible amount of responsibility to ensure this program’s success.  While we gathered information and learned more, it was apparent that for as much as this program was a challenge to our customer, it was an opportunity for Melink to provide insanely great service. So, instead of assuming our standard approach to business, we tried something different: we leaned-in, volunteered out of the box suggestions, and assumed a collaborative approach. The response from our customer was through the roof!

 

Though we are well known for leadership in sustainability, our best-place-to-work culture, and are now employee owned, Melink Corporation is, at its core, a service company.  In fact, “Service Excellence” is one of our core values along with “Integrity”, and “Innovation”.   It is our job to exude these values; to continue doing so, we need to be incredibly adaptable to meet your needs.  Have you ever heard the following expression about good Customer Service? You’ll know it when you see it. Well, when you work with Melink, I don’t want you to “see” our service; I want you to feel it. I want you to be so impressed by your experience, that you are over the moon, telling everyone you see about us. I expect nothing less than Insanely Great Customer Service… so should you.

 

So, I invite you to provide me with any feedback you might have to offer regarding your experience with us. Feel free to contact me at [email protected].

An Outsiders Take on T&B (Co-op Edition)

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

Well, my tenure at Melink is coming to an end as I prepare to return back to the University of Cincinnati to complete my degree in Mechanical Engineering.  As I look back on the experience, I can say that I have learned an incredible amount about the HVAC industry, and more specifically our roll in the niche market of air test & balancing.

Before my time with Melink, the thought of air balancing never really crossed my mind.  Although I was unaware of this process, the symptoms of unbalanced buildings were always right in front of my eyes.  Such examples include the blast of air coming from opening the door of a building, droplets of water falling from ductwork, uncomfortable humid buildings, or trying the pull open a door that feels like it’s being sucked back in; these all too common symptoms seem to plague buildings and stores across the world.  My time with Melink cleared up my misconceptions relating to such occurrences, as I learned that these are typical symptoms of an unbalanced building.

As I stepped into the role of a sales engineer, I had the chance to learn about these issues and how we solve them.  The simple solution is to provide a test and balance.  While many construction projects typically require a test and balance, conditions still change over time, and in other cases, a proper balance may have never been completed in the first place.  This is where Melink comes into the picture.

My day-to-day work revolved around providing testing & balancing services to customers, whether they were current national account customers, developing customers, general contractors, facility managers, etc.  When looking into balancing projects, my role was to address the scope of work needed and discuss any issues on-site, so we can provide the greatest value during our visit.  This process involves examining mechanical documents, determining the equipment on-site, and estimating how long it will take a technician to perform the job.

Despite that fact that testing & balancing had never crossed my mind until I joined Melink, I can now say that I am a firm believer in the importance of this process for both HVAC equipment and building health.  Even in my absence from the company, I will never be able to walk into a building again without taking a look around at the mechanical systems and thinking to myself, “Hmm, this place could really benefit from a proper test & balance”.

Meet Bryan Evenson, Sr. Development Engineer

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

Business Unit and Job Title

I am a Senior Development Engineer in the Product Development group.

What does your job entail?

When I started at Melink, my job was highly focused on embedded software development for Intelli-Hood.  In short, planning and designing how the Intelli-Hood system should operate and writing all the code for the system.  I was also directing the contracted hardware engineer to ensure the electrical hardware met the needs of the Intelli-Hood system.

Today my job is similar, except I’m no longer purely dedicated to Intelli-Hood.  Now that we have Evan Risley as an employee, we’re doing our hardware designs in-house instead of hiring a contractor.

What did you do before coming to Melink?

I worked for about nine years as an embedded software engineer for a military contractor in the Cincinnati area.  It was a great opportunity to work on some very interesting projects.  Unfortunately, the company shut down due to an acquisition, which led me to finding an opportunity here at Melink.

What is your favorite aspect of working at Melink?

My favorite aspect is the freedom I have in my job at Melink.  This is especially apparent to me when I compare my work life at Melink to my last job.

What do you like to do in your time off?

For some reason I seem to enjoy hobbies that take a long time and has an unknown outcome.  I do a little home gardening.  I don’t yield much for vegetables from my garden, but I’d say most of the worth is in teaching my kids that vegetables come from the ground and not the supermarket.

I’ve also enjoy homebrewing, which is a fantastic hobby in which you can get as technical as you want to get.  I think I’ve learned more about water chemistry through homebrewing than I did through either my high school or college chemistry classes.

 

 

The Culprit of Corporate Cafeteria Energy Consumption

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

Corporate cafeterias have taken off over the last decade, and the trend is not slowing. Businesses and building owners have been adding new cafeterias or expanding current ones to help with recruitment of the millennial generation, boost employee retention and satisfaction, and establish a more inviting work environment. While providing a value to employees, cooperate cafeterias are one of the largest operation costs within the building. After all, food service areas account for the highest energy cost per square foot in the commercial building sector.

Cafeteria Energy Consumption Culprit:
THE KITCHEN VENTILATION SYSTEM

The expansion of cafeterias and new cooking techniques create new challenges for kitchen design, code compliance, and added ventilation among other things. A commercial building’s HVAC system accounts for about 29% of energy consumption, and up to 75% of the HVAC energy consumption is contributed to the kitchen hood ventilation system. Kitchen hoods normally run at 100% fan speed from open to close — sometimes even running for 24 hours a day. Even during slow hours of operation, the system is continuously running at 100%. Any time the fan is on, the kitchen hood’s exhaust fans are pulling perfectly good conditioned air out of the building. At the same time, the makeup air unit is trying to respond to this and is heating/cooling the air to redistribute it back into the kitchen. It is a vicious cycle of wasted energy and wasted money.

Solution:
DEMAND CONTROL KITCHEN VENTILATION (DCKV)

DCKV systems utilize optic and/or temperature sensors to actively modulate the exhaust and make up air fans based on the cooking activity within the fume hood. So what does this mean? If your kitchen has downtime and there is no active cooking, the fans will automatically lower their run speed to conserve energy. As cooking starts, fan speed will rev up appropriately until it hits the maximum speed of 100%, if necessary. This allows the highest energy savings, as well as increased comfort and safety for building occupants. DCKV is also easy to implement. It is a low-cost project that is equally effective in new construction or retro-fit during remodels. Savings from installing DCKV can be used to accelerate your payback for the addition of your corporate kitchen, making the cost of the kitchen less.

Interested in seeing how DCKV could benefit your company or commercial building? Contact us for a free energy savings report to see just how much you could save!

The Test and Balance Professional

Posted on by Lindsey Burbee

The HVAC industry is vast; there are many products and services that make up the build of any one system. Test and Balance is a very important niche of the large HVAC industry. Many HVAC companies have offered test and balance services throughout the years, but very few of them have employed technicians dedicated specifically to Testing and Balancing. Enter Steve Melink, circa 1987. Steve knew there was a service gap in the HVAC industry and addressed it. Does it really make sense for an owner to allow an installing contractor to verify the HVAC system they installed is correct? Would it not make more sense if an INDEPENDENT, CERTIFIED and SELF PERFORMING entity verified that the mechanical engineer’s design was met? Of course, it would!

Fast forward 31 years and Melink Test & Balance is still going strong thanks to our dedicated team of technicians. These Balancing Professionals are dedicated to Melink Corporation’s core values of Integrity, Innovation, and Service Excellence.

What is a Test & Balance Technician and What Do They Do??

Our National Network consists of more than 30 professionals across 19 states. Our technician tenure’s range from 15 years to less than a month! 100% of Melink balancers are NEBB trained with more than half of the network being NEBB Certified Technicians. Our technician’s experience prior to Melink varies from HVAC service technicians to general contractors to aircraft systems mechanics. Our team currently services more than 50 major accounts and we are adding more every year. As you can imagine, Melink Technicians have seen nearly every type of commercial HVAC unit utilized by the commercial retail market. There is no typical ‘day in the life’ for our T&B technicians. Between the location, business type, and scope of work, every week is a new adventure!

The lifestyle of our techs is unique, but very rewarding and profitable. All techs are road warriors, traveling across the United States each week to different jobs. Melink covers all travel expenses and supplies each tech with a company vehicle. Not only does this allow the team to see the U.S. on the company dollar, but their personal expenses decrease since most of the week they are being covered by the company. Food, gas, and vehicle expenses add up!!

This position is also very independent and needs a disciplined self-starter. With most projects only needing one tech, most of the travel and work is done alone. Even so, the Melink National Network is a family. Each tech knows that a fellow balancer or office support is only a phone call or an email away if they are ever in a tight spot. Even after hours, our technicians constantly interact with one another to help each other grow and support our customers. This is not just a career or a steady job, this is a lifestyle.

On top of it all, our technicians are also partial owners of the company. Melink Corporation is now an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), which gives all Melink employees even more incentive to push the envelope with innovation and succeed as a business. Thanks to our National Network Technician team, Melink Corporation has been listed as a Best Place to Work for 3 consecutive years. Melink Corporation encourages input and recommendations for improving the business and improving the lives of the technicians. Melink works hard to address everything to better the position and the experience, for our employees. Striving for the best possible work/life balance is something very important to Melink Corporation.

One can find challenges in any profession they choose. But Melink’s National Network chooses to be challenged on a daily basis and to thrive in it! Their dedication and their commitment to service excellence is the backbone of Melink T&B!

Click here to learn more about Melink T&B.