Energy Systems Spotlight
After graduation, Kevin Johnson, MSES’12, was hired full-time as an energy efficiency analyst at EnerNOC’s corporate headquarters in Boston. Johnson is one of many Northeastern graduates who gained the necessary work experience and built the valuable network needed to land jobs post-graduation, often at the company in which they were employed while on co-op. While on his co-op for EnerNOC, a leading provider of demand response and energy efficiency solutions, Johnson was responsible for conducting analysis and providing insight into energy usage for EnerNOC’s industrial, municipal, commercial, and institutional customers. He developed tools to analyze energy usage (including electricity, steam, and gas), manually sorted through energy curves looking for energy savings potential, and interacted with customers to deliver the results of his analyses, all skills that he then carried over into his permanent role at EnerNOC.
“Since going full-time, I have been given more flexibility and yet more responsibility. My role has grown more customer-facing, in addition to my back-office product/process development work. I maintain the relationship with a number of my own clients for whom I do analysis. In addition, I now contribute to major change in company systems because of my knowledge of and experience with databases,” he says.
Johnson’s outlook on the future is positive. As his division continues to expand its staff and grows in revenue and experience, he looks forward to gaining more responsibility. He’s excited about the possibility of traveling to India to provide training, logistical support, and process improvement assistance for EnerNOC’s international team.
Johnson emphasizes the importance of a co-op position in the energy industry because it allows students to apply theoretical knowledge to the real world. Every course he took in the ES program contributed to his understanding of the costs of energy in terms of carbon output and dollars, how buildings operate, and how they can be made more efficient. “The Energy Systems program has positioned me at the intersection of energy engineering, business, and policy,” Johnson says. “Without the co-op experience I gained while at Northeastern, I would not have had the opportunity to work for an excellent company in meaningful work that is making a real impact on the environment and the economy. Energy Systems provided the springboard I needed to jump into the energy sector head first.”