With McCarthy’s focus on green building construction and reinforcing sustainable principles in its projects, it makes perfect sense that Nora Calato, McCarthy’s Southwest Region training manager, serve as the 2008 president of Arizona’s chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).
“My role with the USGBC gives me credibility as I spread the word about sustainability to my colleagues, our clients and in my community,” Calato said. “Volunteering my time to help Arizona be more sustainable is time very well spent.”
A resident of Tempe, Ariz., Calato assumes the leadership of the organization following a transition of the Arizona Chapter into three fully functional branches, designed to better serve the regional needs in Arizona. The new Northern, Southern, and Central Arizona branches will focus on education and building awareness about the LEED rating system (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) for measuring sustainable building design and green building construction practices, while the Chapter board will further statewide advocacy efforts.
“It’s an exciting time to be involved in green building – last year our chapter membership more than tripled to 800, and the number of LEED-accredited professionals went from 400 at the start of the year to 1,000 at the end of 2007 – so clearly there’s a lot of enthusiasm and support for green building in Arizona.”
About McCarthy
Founded in 1864, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the oldest and largest commercial construction companies in the nation. Throughout this long history, McCarthy has consistently worked with clients, communities and partners to construct sustainable and high performance building projects, providing cost and constructability input in a project’s early stages and developing relationships with specialty subcontractors to complete the construction. Today the McCarthy Green Team, consisting of hundreds of LEED Accredited Professionals from across the country, focuses specifically on continuing to bring the most advanced green building solutions to the firm’s projects. McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned. More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.
