First Annual Jeffrey A. Johnson Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Building Energy Codes and Performance Winner Announced!

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is pleased to announce the first recipient of the Jeffrey A. Johnson Award for Excellence in the Advancement of Building Energy Codes and Performance. Bill Pennington, Manager of the Buildings and Appliances Office at the California Energy Commission (CEC), was presented with the award during a plenary session on August 1 at the 2006 National Workshop on State Building Energy Codes in Denver, Colorado. The award recognizes a leader or team in the United States for sustained service of the highest caliber in the pursuit of energy efficiency goals.

Bill Pennington, CEC

Mr. Pennington has responsibility for building standards, appliance standards, home energy ratings, and California's New Solar Home Partnership and Climate Action Team technical work at the CEC. He has worked in management roles related to development and implementation of the Building Energy Efficiency Standards and Appliance Energy Efficiency Standards since 1979. He was advisor to the "Scientist" Commissioner at the Energy Commission, has served on the ASHRAE 90.2 Building Standards Committee, the National Technical Committee for Home Energy Rating Systems, and is currently on the Board of the California Commissioning Collaborative. He recently has represented California's Standards programs in international conferences and collaborations in Kuwait, Europe and Australia. Mr. Pennington is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley.

Jeffrey A. Johnson Award

The award was established earlier this year in honor of Jeff Johnson, a leader in Building Energy Codes and Performance, who died in a mountain biking accident on May 15, 2005. Jeff was an enthusiastic, motivated visionary who made significant impacts in the field of building energy codes and performance throughout his career at the California Energy Commission, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and as Executive Director of New Buildings Institute.

Representatives from the US DOE, Building Energy Codes Program, the New Buildings Institute, the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnership (NEEP) and the building codes industry participated in establishing the criteria and selecting the award recipient. In their comments, Bill Pennington is described as having "led a remarkable effort in California. The results have been and continue to be amazing." It was further said that "his part in the state's (California) enormous success in curbing energy use is an outstanding achievement."