Green Engineers Focus Of California College

Developing the next generation of engineers focused on renewable energy is the goal of a new program under development at Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering , made possible by an anonymous gift of $1.3 million from a San Francisco Bay Area alumnus and his wife.

This donation will help the school launch the Latimer Engineering Scholars Program in the 2011-12 academic year to support teaching and research in sustainable energy. Incoming freshman engineering students will work with the school’s Electrical Engineering Professor and Latimer Engineering Scholars Program Director Tim Healy, who will select five students and assign them laboratory projects. These projects will provide education on renewable energy, focusing initially on photovoltaics and then expanding to other areas as the program expands.

Over the years that follow, those students that succeed in the program will receive increasingly sophisticated projects to work on, as well as the opportunity to mentor younger students. They’ll also be eligible to pursue internships in places such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado, solar technology companies like SunPower Corporation in San Jose, California, and “perhaps one of the light-emitting-diode companies in the Silicon Valley,” said Healy, in a statement .

The donation follows Santa Clara University’s School of Engineering successes in the 2007 and 2009 Solar Decathlon competitions, just in time to mark the institution’s 100 year anniversary.

RMT to focus on renewable energy engineering after unit sale ...

Alliant Energy Corporation (NYSE: LNT) subsidiary RMT, Inc. (RMT) has successfully closed the sale of its Environmental Business Unit to TRC Companies, Inc., a national engineering, consulting, and construction management firm.

Selling the Environmental Business Unit to TRC allows RMT to focus solely on providing siting, permitting, engineering, and construction services to the renewable energy infrastructure market, including wind, solar, and geothermal energy, it said.

RMT will also continue to target facility siting and engineering work.

“This decision refines RMT’s strategic path forward,” said RMT President Steve Johannsen.

“The Environmental Business Unit has been the foundation of the RMT operation for much of our 34-year history. These core competencies have helped to establish a place for RMT in the renewable energy market. However, by maintaining a singular focus on building better, more reliable renewable energy facilities, we believe RMT will be better able to focus the growth of our business, while providing quality service to our clients.”

“TRC has a strong working knowledge of RMT’s environmental service lines and has committed to investing in their growth,” Johannsen continued.

“The company has the resources to ensure that our environmental professionals get the personal and professional opportunities they deserve and that RMT’s long-term environmental clients continue to receive excellent service. This sale should open up more opportunities for growth on both fronts.”

Over the past decade, RMT has provided construction, engineering, design, and development services for over 3,800 MW of renewable energy across the U.S.

In 2011, the company has been selected to design and build ten wind energy projects totaling nearly 1,100 MW and eight utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) projects totaling 55 MWdc.

These projects bring RMT’s total renewable energy portfolio to over 4,900 MW.

Robert W. Baird & Co. acted as exclusive financial advisor to Alliant Energy Corporation and RMT for the transaction.

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