BEST_GREEN_2010:BEST_BEINGGREEN
8/12/10
12:50 PM
Page 76
M I L F O R D
LEED Platinum ®
GREEN P ROV I N G GROUNDS
SEEING IS
B E LIE V ING Story by Doug Sandhage
I
suspect Steve Melink’s blood runs green. He talks it, he walks it, he smells it, he sells it. To many he is Cincinnati’s Mr. Green Jeans. Those in the green movement all say that Melink is the man to see. Ohio Governor Bob Taft and Ted Strickland both made visits to his Milford-based headquarters. The short story is that Melink is actually a newcomer to green. He grew up in Loveland, and received degrees in mechanical engineering from both Vanderbilt and Duke. He founded in 1987 the Melink Corporation, a heating, ventilation and air conditioning commissioning firm. Through this line of work, Melink quickly realized that one product in particular, conventional ventilation systems, were huge energy wasters. Melink’s company developed the first variable speed controller for commercial kitchen hoods which is now an industry standard. The Melink company prospered, then, like any good company that looks ahead, something happened to make it even better. In 2004, Steve attended a green building conference in Cleveland. He saw, he experienced, a passion. A vision, too. The writing was on the wall that energy use needed significant fixing and would require folks like him – along with other architects, engineers, manufacturers and contractors – to think sustainability. “I came back with a fresh, long-term, let’s do the right thing mindset,” says Melink. A new building became the first objective. Melink chose property in an industrial park with plenty of open spaces, off Round Bottom Road, a few miles from where U.S. 50 intersects with I-275 near Milford. At the green conference he learned that the U.S. Green Building Council had established green building
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standards, known as LEED® (see story, page 62). They had four levels a company could achieve: certified, silver, gold and platinum. Like any good Olympian, he set his sights on gold. In 2006 he opened the doors to his 30,000 sq. ft. plant, making the Melink Corporation the first office building in Ohio to be LEED Gold certified and one of only about 100 in the world. Earlier this year, the building was upgraded to LEED Platinum status. So, what happens now inside this very modernly-styled business that greets visitors with obvious signs of green: a wind turbine, solar panels, and a well manicured architectural landscape? Melink Corporation has three businesses. They include national HVAC testing and balancing services for restaurant, retail, supermarket, and hotel chains such as Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and Walgreens; the manufacture and sale of the Intelli-Hood controller, a commercial kitchen ventilation system that saves energy by monitoring the heat and smoke inside hoods and adjusting the fan speeds automatically; and the design and installation of solar photovoltaic systems for generating onsite electricity and hedging against future rate increases of coal-fired electricity and reducing peak demand charges. The mantra at Melink’s firm is three fold: to be proven, practical and profitable, all in a mainstream sort of way. “To take what we’ve done, and apply it to future construction,” says Melink. • On the proven portion, Melink says that his building is now about 80 percent more energy efficient than a conventionally built one, as costs are only about 40 cents per sq. ft. per year. After additional building envelope improvements and solar PV is installed this