Sustainability Director at Lake | Flato Architects

<p><strong>Heather Holdridge</strong> <span style= "font-weight: 400;">is the Sustainability Director at Lake|Flato Architects. Leveraging her mechanical engineering background, she directs all Lake|Flato teams in establishing and achieving sustainability goals by devising strategies and systems under programs such as LEED, the 2030 Challenge, and the Living Building Challenge. Heather works closely with teams to evaluate passive systems and performs energy modeling throughout the design process. As an active Board Member for the United States Green Building Council, Heather has been instrumental in establishing LEED standards and is Co-Chair of the San Antonio AIA Committee on the Environment.</span></p> <p> </p> <h3><strong>Early in Heather’s Career</strong></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Heather is a native Texan, growing up in Houston.  She studied mechanical engineering at the University of Texas in Austin.  Heather pursued mechanical engineering knowing it would give her the opportunity to deal and have an impact with energy and water and other resources when it came to sustainability.</span></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">“</span></em><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">I was pretty lucky that my first job out of college was with a sustainable architecture and consulting firm in San Antonio.  So it was a multidisciplinary consulting group and I got to see how all kinds of building professionals work and how their design and work processes.</span></em><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">”</span></em> <span style="font-weight: 400;">- Heather Holdridge</span></p> <p> </p> <h3><strong>Sustainability Minded</strong></h3> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Heather’s interest in sustainability was a slow evolution.  As a teenager she was curious about how buildings were constructed.  Then as a young adult Heather observed how inefficient the process was.</span></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em><span style= "font-weight: 400;">“I consider myself to be sust