Click here to learn more about the third-party software Energy Education, Inc. clients use to measure and verify savings. November 2005 marks the twenty-five year anniversary of Good Steward’s industry-leading EnergyCAP energy efficiency software and its predecessor, FASER (Fast Accounting System for Energy Reporting) Energy Accounting. In response to a growing demand for energy management software when PCs were in their infancy and oil prices were peaking, licensed mechanical engineer Steve Heinz (BS, Civil Engineering, United States Air Force Academy; MS, Architectural Engineering, Penn State University) launched the development of FASER in late 1980. FASER quickly became the industry standard for utility bill verification, tracking and reporting, and the calculation of the cost avoidance attributable to energy management and savings activities. FASER was widely used by energy management consultants, commercial businesses such as Sprint, Wal-Mart and Blockbuster, governmental institutions including the U.S. Coast Guard, the City of New York and the State of Tennessee; and hundreds of school districts and universities including Polk County, FL Public Schools; Wichita, KS Public Schools; Corpus Christi, TX Independent School District; California State University; and Penn State University. By the mid-1990's, FASER's thousands of users tracked an estimated five million energy bills a year valued at $2 billion. FASER was purchased by Enron in 1996. At the time, FASER was nationally recognized as the premiere energy management measurement and verification software. After completion of the purchase by Enron, FASER was only minimally enhanced and supported. Rather, Enron concentrated its efforts on building a powerful and flexible FASER replacement. Following Enron's bankruptcy in late 2001, and uncertain of the fate of FASER users, Mr. Heinz formed Good Steward Software, hired key team members and acquired access to the FASER software assets made available through the Enron bankruptcy proceedings. Good Steward subsequently announced the retirement of the aging FASER program and devoted all development efforts to the EnergyCAP product line. EnergyCAP Professional, used by hundreds of Energy Education’s [see footnote]school district clients around the country, was developed and soon recognized as the preeminent tool for school district energy managers to use for independently tracking utility costs and calculating and verifying energy savings. EnergyCAP Professional is available exclusively to school district clients of Energy Education, Inc. “Using the industry’s leading software allows our district to “keep score” on our savings. Because our employees use EnergyCAP Pro to measure and verify savings, we know our figures are accurate, and we know where to concentrate our efforts.” --Dr. Edgar Hatrick --Superintendent – Loudoun County Public Schools, VA “The fact that Energy CAP Pro complies with the Department of Energy’s International Performance Measurement and Verification Protocol (IPMVP) allows me to validate our savings with complete assurance. It’s invaluable to our district to have such a measurement tool for the progress of our program.” --Mr. Bob Williams --Assistant Superintendent for Facilities – School Board of Polk County, FL “We know we are making a difference in the lives of children because we use EnergyCAP Pro for tracking our own progress. This aspect of the program — an independent software for in-district recordkeeping — ensures the integrity of our records.” --Dr. Larry Aceves --Superintendent – Franklin McKinley Unified School District, CA EnergyCAP Enterprise is used today by large ($25 million or more per year in utility expenditures) government, commercial and university clients including Yale University, The Smithsonian Institution, The City of Toronto and Linens ‘N Things. EnergyCAP Enterprise’s powerful SQL Server database and flexible design make it attractive for large organizations with diverse and sophisticated energy tracking, accounting and management needs. "As a 16 year FASER user, when the time came to upgrade my software, I surveyed the Energy Accounting Market and again found that there is no software available that contains both the detail and flexibility of EnergyCAP Enterprise. The program takes into account all aspects of energy consumption and bill processing and gives me instant information on usage abnormalities plus detailed reporting capabilities." --Kimberly von Schweinitz --EnergyCAP Operator “The PowerViews on the Facility Manager Place General, Commodity and Monthly tabs are a great improvement over FASER to get a quick overview of where a place or an account stands compared to recent history (2 or 3 years)…The links to allow moving back and forth quickly between accounts and meters is very handy.” -- Utilities Engineer --Office of Physical Plant --University (Big Ten) “We have used FASER now for over ten years and we have data stored from as far back as 1993 in the FASER system. We are a large organization and have thousands of meters and utility accounts servicing hundreds of buildings. So when it came time to retire the older FASER system and upgrade with a newer system, our first consideration was Good Steward’s EnergyCAP Enterprise (ECE). Before deciding on ECE, we researched other systems from other manufacturers and it became clear that ECE was the best fit for our University. ECE allows large numbers of meters and accounts with the most flexibility of reporting and importing. Good Steward also performed the conversion of our historical data into the new system so no data was lost and the process went very smoothly. I have much faith in the knowledge of the support staff and my observations are based on experience with them in the past. Overall, we upgraded to Good Steward’s ECE based on trust of the system, flexibility of the program, and our good experiences with FASER and its associates up to this point. We look forward to learning the new software and using it to help our University’s vision and mission of providing a quality environment.” -- Utilities Manager --Facilities Management --University (SEC) For twenty-five years, Good Steward’s FASER and EnergyCAP software have been valuable tools, helping hundreds of school districts, government organizations, Fortune 500 companies and renowned universities be good stewards of their energy and financial resources. Public entities responsible for the efficient use of taxpayer dollars and private organizations that answer to legions of shareholders have and continue to benefit by using FASER and its successor, EnergyCAP software. ____________________________ Steve Heinz and Good Steward Software Significant Milestones, 1980 – 2005 1980: Omnicomp, Inc. is founded in State College, PA. 1982: Initial commercial release of FASER Energy Accounting Software. The inaugural client is Pasadena Unified School District, the first of over 1,000 public school districts to use FASER and EnergyCAP Software. 1985: A cost avoidance module using degree day linear regression is added to FASER. FASER is quickly adopted as the standardized software of choice for energy management performance tracking by energy industry leaders such as Honeywell, Carrier, Landis & Gyr and ServiceMaster. 1986: FASER is selected by Energy Education, Inc. as the standardized energy tracking software for the company’s growing school district clientele. FASER was selected after Energy Education undertook a nationwide search for the best energy tracking software. Unlike other energy performance contractors that run the FASER software for their clients, Energy Education takes the unique approach of training its school district clients to independently run the software. For the first time, hundreds of school districts, on behalf of their taxpayers, independently measure and verify their realized energy savings. 1990: FASER is licensed to Wal-Mart Stores for energy tracking, helping to facilitate the interface between FASER software and accounts payable. 1995: The first Windows version of FASER is released. 1997: Development of EnergyCAP begins; an initial browser-based version is released that charts and analyzes fifteen-minute interval data. 2001: The initial SQL client-server version of EnergyCAP is rolled out just as Enron declares bankruptcy. 2002: Good Steward Software acquires the rights to Enron’s FASER suite of intellectual property and assumes FASER technical support. 2002: In December, Good Steward releases the initial version of EnergyCAP Professional. 2004: Initial release of EnergyCAP Enterprise. 2005: Good Steward Software continually improves EnergyCAP Professional and EnergyCAP Enterprise with a slate of major and minor product upgrades and plans for significant future functionality improvements for the software. EnergyCAP Enterprise OnLine version is released. EnergyCAP is a registered trademark of Good Steward Software, LLC, State College, PA. ____________________________ Note: Over 700 school districts in 46 states have teamed with Energy Education to successfully and effectively reduce school energy costs and redirect taxpayer dollars from utility budgets to the education of elementary, junior high and high school students. EnergyCAP Professional software and its predecessor, FASER, have been used for almost twenty years by school district clients of Energy Education, Inc. to independently measure and verify energy savings.