The municipality of Anchorage has hired Siemens Building Technologies Inc. to install five hi-tech systems in the convention center that will make the facility among the most energy-efficient buildings in the state.

Siemens, a worldwide leader in energy retrofits, will provide the center with energy management and control systems - the fire alarm and life safety, security, closed-circuit television, audio, and the heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems.

The new systems will allow building operators to access and control heating, cooling and electricity from remote computers - no more going from room to room adjusting thermostats.

Building staff can remotely turn off lights and turn down the heat in empty rooms, and set the system up to be warm just before an event.

The new center also will employ a heat system that uses less outside air, a system that will bring cost savings especially in winter.

Cost for the systems is $1.5 million, said Jim McDonough, Siemens account executive. The new facility is expected to run 20 percent more efficient compared to a similarly sized building that is 10 to 20 years old.

Hoover

Siemens came to Alaska during the boom construction years of the Project '80s. The first employee in the state began operations out of his garage. The company now has three offices, in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau.

Nearly all the 72 employees are Alaskans, McDonough said.

"We had tried to hire from the Lower 48, but it didn't work out," he said. "Our success has a lot to do with hiring people who live and are educated in Alaska. They are people who don't want to leave."

The company has an endowment set up at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, giving out two $1,000 scholarships a year. Siemens is working to set up a similar program at the Anchorage campus, and to help students in the Anchorage School District wanting to enter the engineering field.

Some 13 members of the staff are University of Alaska graduates, many of who interned at the company during college breaks. General manager Leverette Hoover is himself a graduate of the University of Alaska Anchorage.

Four interns are working for the company this summer. They work alongside the more than 20 veterans who work at the Alaska Siemens offices.

"It's a good mix," Hoover said. "The vets teach the college guys real-life experiences and attention to detail. Vets know what it takes to get the job done."

The company's Alaska business has tripled in the last decade, as it begun to offer local training on how to operate its systems to its customers, Hoover said.

"Business really picked up when people saw they didn't have to bring someone up from Outside to train them," he said. "Some customers like to get their operators certified in how to run the systems. Some customers in the state can do their own installations. We like to teach them to be as independent as they want to be."