We’re proud of the intelligent, passionate, and hardworking people that make up the Bright Power team. Each month, you’ll get a chance to meet one of them, understand how they contribute to the organization, and what makes them excited to come to work every day.
Meet Alice Suh, Technical Director of Strategic Initiatives.
What are some of the things you like most about working at Bright Power?
I appreciate working with a group of people who can be counted on to bring a positive attitude to tackling new problems. Despite the many unknowns when approaching new projects or initiatives, my colleagues are always solution-oriented and not shy about applying their best instincts (and leaning on each other’s) to propose ideas thoughtfully. Being around this attitude is energizing and important to keeping momentum in this field.
What’s something people might not know about you?
People working with me on individual projects may not know how multi-faceted my involvement in different projects can be. I have a basic knowledge in a wide variety of areas that I end up applying day to day, which might include: drawing on my engineering background to provide opinions or fact-checking on building technologies or to do some energy savings math by hand; SQL querying to pull insights from our database for our clients quickly; working with our software developers to design technical solutions to meet business needs; writing briefs and reports to synthesize technical information to be easily digestible; or applying some graphic design 101 to creating forms and ad-hoc reports.
The variety is fun and also fully enabled by my Bright Power network of colleagues with deeper expertise with whom I can easily connect and learn from.
What are some projects and accomplishments you’re most proud of?
A significant accomplishment was providing solid support to Fannie Mae’s Green Finance team during the ramp-up of its highly popular Green Mortgage Loan offerings in the first years of the program. We worked closely with the Fannie Mae team to design and lay the groundwork for the rapid scaling up of the Green portfolio. We tackled all of the logistical and technical challenges that came with shifting focus on flexibly getting the program off the ground to enabling a scalable, delegated system fitting Fannie Mae’s mainstream business model.
An example I worked on that helped reach the data and delegation necessary to achieve program scale: I created a pretty robust form out of an Excel spreadsheet (Form 4099H) used as a primary data collection and QC point for Fannie Mae in thousands of deals. Another not insignificant task was creating and maintaining the early database for Green Mortgage Loan data, QCing it, and helping transition all of the data to Fannie Mae’s in-house system. Along the way, I’ve always been available to advise on everything from toilet tank retrofits to lighting efficiency standards.
Continuously providing the necessary attention to detail and judgment has turned us into a reliable, long-term partner for Fannie Mae.