Leadership

Mina McCullom is the CEO /President of SynEnergy. With over 20 years of experience in project management, business development and mechanical engineering. She brings her unique understanding of multidisciplinary expertise to deliver efficient building-systems solutions to projects from concept phase to execution. Mina is charged to lead the company by providing direction and inspiration for all aspects of the company’s operations. She emphasizes customer service, long-term goals, growth, profit, and return on investment.

Mina conducted research in energy efficiency in commercial and residential buildings, as well as in effective project management at the National Renewable Energy Lab, at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Stanford University. Furthermore, she applied this knowledge in the commercial sector.

She served as a Project Manager at Boeing on Cooperative Research and Development Agreements (CRADA) with National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). These projects integrated cyber security, energy efficiency and renewable energy for Department of Defense–Microgrid Applications. Mina led a team of software, electrical and mechanical engineers to develop a tool that monitors energy consumption and power generation on military bases which can be switched instantaneously “to inland” mode.

Mina honed her Project Manager expertise at CH2M HILL, implementing numerous successful energy sustainability projects. Mina’s project teams exercise a multidisciplinary, holistic and systematic approach to identify any facility’s operations relative to energy consumption, water management, waste generation, integrating sustainable technologies and practices. We examine the building’s envelope, mechanical systems, electrical systems, water usage, and waste generation, evaluating the interrelationships between parameters.

Research and Publication:

Mina has extensive knowledge in conducting research on building envelopes, thermal bridging, and their impact on energy efficiency. She published the results of a detailed study to compare the energy consumption of both Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and wood-frame residential buildings in all climate zones across the United States.

Based on the results, she developed a simplified method to estimate potential energy savings associated with SIP buildings relative to equivalent wood-frame buildings.

As an application of the simplified method, she conducted a life-cycle cost analysis to assess the cost effectiveness of building SIP buildings throughout the U.S. and the associated energy savings due to reduced thermal bridging.

In addition, she furthered her research by evaluating the impact of reduced thermal bridging in prefabricated modular building envelopes (like SIPs) for deployed military forces. As part of this effort, she quantified the amount of diesel fuel saved (and thus reducing transportation needs under adverse conditions). Her methodology consisted of both quantitative and qualitative analyses.

Publications:

Krarti and M. McCullom. “A Simple Method to Estimate Energy Savings for Structural Insulated Panels Applied to Single Family Homes ”in Proceedings of the ASME 2010 4th  International Conference on Energy Sustainability ES2010-90353, 2010.

Education:

Stanford University
     – Masters of Science: Management Science (pursuing)

University of Colorado at Boulder
     – Master of Science: Mechanical Engineering – Building Systems

California State University at Long Beach
     – Bachelor of Science: Aerospace Engineering