Paul Quick - Planning Specialist
Denver Zoological Foundation - Denver, CO
Start Date: November 2006 (official-internship for 10 months prior)
When Paul Quick first began working at the Denver Zoo, he was a student at the Art Institute of Colorado, working on his second bachelor’s degree – this one in industrial design. Because of his background in and understanding of production methods and engineering principals, he was hired to design a waste-to-energy facility for the zoo.
In doing so, he developed a detailed understanding of waste management operations around the zoo. He created a simulation model that displays how waste is handled, mixed, and processed into material (known as feedstock) from which energy can be made. The Denver Zoo can now identify where, how much, and what is generated at more than fifty individual locations throughout the zoo.
The zoo is now developing software that rates products, suppliers, and manufacturers, both qualitatively and quantitatively, to assist in short-listing how, where, and a frequency of product and services that are provided to the zoo.
Paul oversees this project, as well as another software-development project that collects daily data based on how zoo employees get to and from work, in order to quantify a transportation carbon footprint. The goal is to improve the usage of the new employee benefit of the "Ecopass," a zoo provided mass transit pass for all employees.
Currently, he's developing a small-scale demonstration system that will utilize event waste to create energy to power all processing equipment as well as blenders, lights, and other event equipment.
"The diverse requirements and high level of communication processes required to maintain all these projects forces me to constantly learn and adjust," says Paul. "Every day is unpredictable, and I love it."
“I am a very devoted and environmentally focused individual and I bring these passions into the workplace,” says Paul. “Outside of work I have been taking a class on defining and measuring sustainability and working as a consultant on a net zero residential building. I enjoy every aspect of what I do during and outside of work. This is an exciting time to have a job dedicated to improving environmental performance, and I am happy to spend my time doing just that.”
Paul has two bachelor’ s degrees: one in mechanical engineering from Montana State University, Bozeman, and one industrial design from the Art Institute of Colorado.
