Breakout Series 1

Yvonne Castillo, Esq. is Director of Risk Advisory at Victor Insurance Managers, where she helps architects and engineers manage professional liability risks with a focus on climate and resilience. A lawyer since 1995, she earned her law degree from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Texas. Her career includes work as a Denver Public Defender, civil litigator, and leadership roles with the American Institute of Architects in Texas and Washington, DC. She also serves on the Board of the National Institute of Building Sciences and as a Council-Appointed Advisory Board Member for Boulder Parks & Recreation.

Elizabeth Gillmor is president and founder of Energetics Consulting Engineers, a boutique energy consulting firm in Denver that specializing in providing pragmatic, cost-effective, and resilient building energy solutions through energy modeling, sustainability consulting, and building performance testing.  As a provider for multiple utility rebate programs and a building electrification proponent, she has been the energy consultant for hundreds of local Colorado buildings of all sorts, and experiences a broad perspective of different project teams’ goals, approaches, and priorities.  Elizabeth is also an expert in energy codes, and has served on the Denver Building Code adoption committee for the last two code cycles, Denver Net Zero Energy Advisory Group, the Denver Green Buildings Ordinance Technical Advisory Committee, and the Colorado Energy Code Board that developed Colorado’s new model energy code. She is a Professional Engineer in the field of Architectural Engineering.

Adam Berry is an Advisor for Building Decarbonization at the Colorado Energy Office (CEO), a non-regulatory office of the Governor of Colorado. In his role, Adam manages much of Colorado’s work on building decarbonization policy, including managing Colorado’s development of advanced energy codes for statewide adoption through the Colorado Energy Code Board and development of stretch codes and other building decarbonization policies, such as building performance standards, and building electrification policies. He also works closely with local governments to adopt and implement effective building decarbonization policies, and supports development of new legislative proposals for energy codes and decarbonization of buildings across Colorado. Adam was previously a Senior Program Manager at CEO, leading the state’s policy and program efforts on energy codes.

Prior to joining CEO, Adam spent four years working on federal energy policy in the United States Senate for Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee. During his time in the Senate, Adam crafted policies for improving building energy efficiency and decarbonizing existing buildings, and led the efforts to include nearly $40 billion in incentives for building energy retrofits, energy code adoption and enforcement, and industrial and manufacturing efficiency in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.

Adam holds a bachelor’s degree in political science from Wichita State University.

Trisha Parekh, Assoc. AIA, is a sustainability consultant with six years of experience in green building rating system facilitation and documentation, daylight modeling and whole building life cycle assessment. Trisha has worked on a multitude of commercial facilities, including higher education, K-12 education, recreation centers, and public and private sector office facilities. She is well versed in LEED and WELL facilitation and documentation and computing embodied carbon throughout the lifecycle of material systems. With a global professional expertise, Trisha brings a collaborative approach to her projects and a strong focus on project tracking and management. Trisha is passionate about working towards building resiliency within our social systems and communities and she has volunteered in disaster relief programs and education for underprivileged children.

Chris Le, Assoc. AIA, is a planner and designer that specializes in airport terminals. His published works include topics such as DEIB influences on adaptive architecture as well as teaching methodologies to architectural professors in the global south that are mindful of pre-colonized communities and the potential impact on both study-abroad students and the people they interact with. His research on rainwater collection garnered four awards and was presented to the United States State Department. This led to the development of a primary school that serves 1,000 students in the heart of the capital city of Lusaka, Zambia, where it has been praised by the Zambian government as model design for other schools. In conjunction with the University of Oklahoma, he helped developed the Women’s Peace Conference in Northern Uganda, where women from 17 tribes come together to discuss to network and discuss topics such as polygamy and marital violence.

Joe Cruz, AIA, NOMA, NCARB is a Department Manager for Architecture Southwest with over 25 years of experience in architecture and project management with a focus on aviation and federal projects. Joe has managed design and construction administration on large hub to small regional airport projects as well as federal and military projects overseas and stateside, leveraging his US Air Force background as a foundation for leadership, collaboration, and client/partner relationships.