McKinstry’s Lauren Bridgers on Making Lasting Impact Through Energy Performance Contracting

“The most rewarding part of my job is when the client realizes the energy savings after our work.”

Lauren Bridgers is a project director for McKinstry’s Energy line of business in Colorado and has been with McKinstry since 2016. In her role, Lauren prioritizes client needs while maintaining highly effective and supportive teams.

Learn more about Lauren’s career path in the industry and the change she hopes to inspire at McKinstry.

Learn More About Lauren’s Experience

What is your role at McKinstry? How did you get there? How did you develop an interest in your field? What does success look like in your role? What is the most rewarding thing about your work? What change do you hope to inspire through your work at McKinstry?

What is your role at McKinstry? How did you get there?

I currently serve as the project director for McKinstry’s Energy line of business in Colorado. My journey at McKinstry began in October 2016, initially as a project engineer in the Energy Construction team. Over time, I progressed to the roles of senior project engineer and construction manager before reaching my current position as project director.

How did you develop an interest in your field?

Like a lot of young people, I wanted to save the world. After college I started out as a third-grade teacher but realized that unfortunately, today, teaching is a very minor part of a teacher’s job, so I went back to college to get my Mechanical Engineering degree. When I found McKinstry and started doing energy performance contracting, I thought, this was my chance to make an impact on reducing the human footprint.

What does success look like in your role?

My role is client-focused, while balancing the needs of various McKinstry teams. Success looks like happy clients and happy McKinstry teams, working together towards the common goals of the client. My job is to become familiar with the client’s aspirations early in the project and ensure that these aspirations are staying at the forefront of the project teams’ minds throughout the project from sales to measurement and verification.

What is the most rewarding thing about your work?

The most rewarding part of my job is when the client realizes the energy savings after our work. For example, when the client can look at their reduced utility bills and say “McKinstry helped with this!” And even more exciting when the client goes on to say, “Great, now when can we do a phase two of the project?” This demonstrates their trust of our teams and that they want to continue to use energy performance contracting to reduce their energy usage.

What change do you hope to inspire through your work at McKinstry?

I hope that I can help continue to encourage people to do their best work to truly help clients reduce energy consumption and live up to our McKinstry values. Our McKinstry values are strong and woven through most of us. I want to encourage people to think about these values daily and find the best way to make continuous improvements to how we do our work to uphold these values. I want to challenge people to think, “How can we do things more efficiently and more succinctly as a team?” McKinstry means a lot to me, and I hope to continue to inspire people to work together synergistically to meet our client’s goals.