studs off a couple of inches and used spray foam insulation, so there was no thermal bridging. Then we looked at a lot of different little things we could do. LED lighting had just come in. So, you do all LED lighting. You look at daylight harvesting, so when you have a sunny day, you can have the lights off or lower the brightness. One of the most important keys to our first net-zero building was the geothermal wellfield. The ground was suitable. Its direct/indirect cooling was basically free, and there was PV on the roof. We had a goal of an EUI of 20 on the first building, Odyssey Elementary. During the first year of operation, we had a measured EUI of 17.3, which is astonishing. The school district hadn’t bought into the PV, so it didn’t have PV on the roof. We met with the school board, and showed them the stats and said, “In about 14 years, you will have paid for those PV panels because you’re saving that much energy. And that’s assuming energy costs don’t go up, which they will.” The school board members looked at each other and said, “Why wouldn’t we do that?” It was expensive in 2013: $750,000. We still figured it would pay for itself that soon. Odyssey is also LEED Gold certified. We just opened a school prototype last year, and we have one finishing for a school opening in August. The PV for that roof is like $250,000. It’s gone down drastically. People have asked our client, Brian Turner, FAIA, “How long does it take to pay back?” He said, “I figure it’s the first day because our electric bills go down and we would have been paying them. What does it matter for the next hundred years? We’re not going to have electrical bills.” What changes have you experienced in the industry, particularly as a woman? It wasn’t always easy, but I guess I never thought too much about being a woman in this industry, even though there weren’t very many women. That was probably based on my parents’ support. My dad was an electrical engineer, and he’d always say, “You know, Jeanne, you can be anything you want to be.” And I said, “Yeah, I know that, Dad.” It took me years to figure out why he told me that. When I told him I was going to be an architect, he said, “Don’t you think you’re too smart for that?” I still laugh about that. I was very fortunate because I got out of school at age 24. I got my license before I was 27. I was very hung up on being able to say I’m an architect. It was very big for me. As soon as I was licensed, my mentors would take me to meet the principal and say, “This is Jeanne Jackson, she’ll be your architect.” Once, a client said, “Are you a real architect?” I said, “Yes, I’m a licensed architect.” I know I looked very young. I had superintendents on my jobs who were mostly respectful, amazingly. Many times, my mentors would come with me, but sometimes they didn’t. Once at a job site after my weekly meeting, I had to use the restroom. I said, “Hey, before I walk around the site, is there a restroom I can use?” This is how naive I was. He goes, “Yes, get in your car. Drive down the street about half a mile, and there’s a Taco Bell.” He didn’t want me to see the scary portable restrooms with all the graffiti. The job site was so different in the olden days; you would go in there, and there’d be girlie calendars. Now you go into the job site trailer, and they’re talking about their kids. The whole industry, I think, has gotten more the way it ought to be — it ought to be about building a great building. You said it wasn’t always easy. The first few years were hard. I didn’t know enough. I’d be sitting there trying to figure out how to do a door detail — we had a binder of standard details. I would finish, and because the partner I was working with might not be there, I’d be thinking, “Now I’m not sure what to do.” Frankly, when you’re right out of school, it’s a little bit of a mystery. Also, Salt Lake City School District Nibley Park Elementary School
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