To celebrate Black History Month, we're interviewing members of the CIBSE community to help inspire and promote diversity amongst future engineers. This week, we hear from Lionel James, a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Manager. My name is Lionel James; I am a Chartered Engineer and Chartered Manager with over 35+ years’ experience employed with both Building Services (BS) Design Consultancies and Contractors. My career started at Ove Arup & Partners Ltd in 1981 (now operating as Arup), the office was based in Birmingham. I was the first Black (African/Caribbean ethnicity) Trainee BS Engineer to be employed in the Birmingham office. During my career as a Building Services Engineer, I have worked for numerous Consultancies and Contractors in roles from Mechanical Designer, Principal Designer and Associate Director. I am currently employed as the Lead Building Services Lecturer and Assessor with Solihull College, in the Construction and Built Environmental Dept. I teach on co

Full name : Heather Beaumont Topic area : Facilities Management CIBSE Trainer since : 2019 Tell us a little about yourself  I’ve been an engineer for over 35 years and am a STEM Ambassador. What do you enjoy most about being a CIBSE trainer?     Putting together the content and interaction with people. Do you encounter any challenges as a trainer? All training is a challenge as every session is different, that’s what makes it interesting. What is your favourite part about your topic area?   The diversity of buildings services and management. Why do you think that it’s important that building services professionals keep up with their professional development?   Building services change all the time and there are always new methods or technologies that we can employ to improve things. Keeping up to date is essential. If you could go back to your younger self when you started working in building services, what advice would you give yourself or would you try to change some of the decisions

Last year, the CIBSE Inclusivity Panel published a set of Inclusivity Guidelines for members and staff. The guidance covers a range of areas from events and communications, to governance. In this blog post, we hear from Atif Rashid on the importance of inclusive practice in governance and what CIBSE is doing to ensure that the institution is governed in a fair and inclusive way.   Governance By Atif Rashid, CIBSE Inclusivity Panel  Governance is a bit like building services engineering. It’s all around us, hidden in plain sight, but many are unaware. When it works well, few take notice of its complex and nuanced machinations. But if it goes wrong – if it breaks down or fails to adapt to changing requirements – the complaints are many, and loud. It’s also a key component in moving the diversity & inclusion (D&I) conversation forward.  This is because, at its heart, good governance is about achieving the trust and buy-in of everyone involved in an organisation. Governance is a

  Full name : Gordon Hudson Areas of expertise : Mechanical Services and sustainability  CIBSE Trainer since: 2017  Tell us a little about yourself  I have worked in both Academia and Professional Practice in the Building Services Engineering Industry. I have always been enthusiastic about learning, whether in formal situations or from experience and that probably explains why I have a had a sort of foot in both camps.   In Academia and Professional practice, sustainability has been a keen focus for me over the last twenty years.  I am particularly interested in whether we can really achieve our aim to deliver low carbon, low impact buildings that deliver well-being. With partners at Northumbria University we researched the use of BREEAM in healthcare and that led to sustainable assessment development work in Abu Dhabi and Egypt.   It became clear to me that although building sustainable issues are worldwide their solutions and delivery are specific to regions too.    In completing th

To celebrate Black History Month, we're interviewing members of the CIBSE community to help inspire and promote diversity amongst future engineers. This week, we hear from Tejiri Ayerume, a Mechanical Engineer at chapmanbdsp.   My name is Tejiri Ayerume and I am a Mechanical Engineer. I got my Masters (MEng) in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Warwick. I did an elective of business in my final year, so the degree title is Mechanical Engineering with Business Management. I have worked in the building services industry for over a year now at chapmanbdsp. What first interested you in becoming an engineer?  While studying for my GCSEs at the Ursuline Academy Ilford I was often reminded that it would soon be time to choose a career path and therefore the subjects that would allow me to follow that path. My interest in engineering stemmed from an underlying interest in architecture and the design aspects of engineering. It was when I first read the quote “Necessity is the moth

  Michael is a Chartered Engineer and has been working as a Mechanical Engineer at Atelier Ten since graduating from the University of Leeds in 2015. More recently, Michael has taken on the role of Digital Lead at Atelier Ten. He is a member of the CIBSE Society of Digital Engineering (SDE) Steering Group and a member of the Digital Innovations working group. Michael is also a committee member of the CIBSE YEPG and looks after the social media content for the group. What do digital engineers do? Digital engineers primarily work with data integration within the traditional design and construction process, also known as Building information modelling (BIM). There are many benefits to BIM, including improvements to coordination and communication, risk mitigation, cost certainty and ultimately better outputs. In addition to working with BIM, a digital engineer may also look at improving workflows and processes within their organisation, which could be something as simple as a new Excel t

To celebrate Black History Month, we are launching our new CIBSE Role Models series to help inspire and promote a diverse workforce in our sector. We'll be asking a diverse range of individuals from across the CIBSE community to share their stories and experiences.  Today we hear from Hakeem Makanju, Building Services Manager at Transport for London and Chair of the CIBSE Home Counties South West Region. My name is Hakeem Makanju; I am a Chartered Engineer with over 20 years experience in Building Services Design Consultancy and Facilities Management. After graduating in July 1999 with BEng (Hons) in Electrical & Electronic Engineering (endorsed with Systems for Environmental Services), I progressed my career path as follows: In July 2000 , I was employed by Furness Green Partnership as a Graduate Electrical Engineer ; and thereafter signed up to their in-house accredited graduate training scheme which formed the basis of my initial professional development In July 2002, I w

  As part of the Young Energy Performance Group's (YEPG) “Career in Building Services” series, today we meet Abs, who works as a Contractor. If you have any questions, you can contact us at  yepg@cibse.org   Abs has been in the contracting industry for 9 years. He started off through the structured apprenticeship route, going onto study a BEng Hons in Building Services Engineering at London South Bank University.  He is currently working as a Project Manager and has taken several projects from inception to handover. His current project is an 8 storey office block in the heart of London. Abs currently serves as the vice-chair in YEPG and aids wherever is required, such as running events, liaising with external parties and ensuring the morale is always high! Who are contractors? Contractors are companies that are usually appointed after the design stage to carry out the construction works, from inception to handover. It, therefore, means being more presence on-site compared to consul