PE, CEM, LEED AP, principal/co-founder

Lightstep (San Francisco)

Mission statement: “My mission is to always be asking the question, ‘How can we do better?’ I’m constantly looking for ways to identify barriers to innovation and shatter them. While there are many things that we’re doing right, there are also many opportunities for us to question the status quo and seek ways to do things more efficiently and make a greater impact.”

Who he is: A licensed professional engineer, Guity spent the last 14 years working at Mazzetti, most recently as chief energy engineer, building the firm’s practice and expertise in sustainable building design. This summer, he stepped out on his own, founding Lightstep, an interdisciplinary design consultancy focused on improving building performance and helping organizations develop strategies to achieve carbon/energy goals. He also continues to consult for Mazzetti.

Year in review: As part of the project team for the 521,000-square-foot Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford expansion, opened in December 2017 in Palo Alto, Calif., Guity helped meet the healthcare organization’s desire for innovation and cutting-edge solutions with a displacement ventilation system for the med/surg and ICU patient rooms and building entry lobby—one of the first hospitals in North America to use this type of ventilation system.

Displacement ventilation uses the buoyancy effects of air, with hot air rising and cold air sinking, to create good thermal comfort. Working with UC Davis Health in Sacramento, Calif., he also developed an interactive web-based energy/carbon roadmap for the facility as part of the owner’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative, which aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2025. Additionally, through the California Energy Commission’s PIER Research Grant program, he worked on a pilot research project to install a monitoring and control system in a Southern California hospital to measure and optimize indoor air quality and reduce energy consumption.

Industry impact: By working with stakeholders early in the design process and partnering with organizations to map out their energy-use strategies, Guity has demonstrated that it’s possible to develop innovative and sustainable solutions alongside goals related to patient experience and outcomes. For example, the LEED Platinum-certified Lucile Packard facility is designed to be one of the most sustainable hospitals in the world, producing 90 percent less carbon emissions than the average U.S. hospital, while creating an environment for patients and staff that’s comfortable, healthy, efficient, and beautiful.

He’s also helping advance ideas for optimizing hospital ventilation systems through the PIER grant project, which will track the test site’s indoor air quality, ventilation rates, and corresponding energy consumption for a year before publishing and sharing the findings with the industry at large.

What’s next: In addition to growing his new design consultancy, Guity will be working on three new hospital projects in Africa that he designed with Mazzetti in collaboration with MASS Design Group, including Nyarugenge District Hospital, in Kigali, Rwanda; Munini District Hospital, in Munini, Rwanda; and Redemption Hospital, in Caldwell, Liberia.