2024 Recap

2024 was another successful year for the team at Cyclone Energy Group. This past year was marked by innovation, growth, numerous achievements and milestones for our team and for our client projects. We added four new members to the team, we saw several of our completed projects achieve various certifications and receive industry accolades, and our team members achieved professional recognition and new certifications. We are honored to be shortlisted again this year for the 2025 CIBSE Building Performance Awards in the category of Consultancy of the Year.

In September we held another successful Innovation Rodeo at the Old Post Office in Chicago. We hosted a fantastic line up of guest speakers covering a range of topics from decarbonization, embodied carbon, modeling cities and their environmental impact and AI impacts in architecture, engineering and construction. If you couldn’t attend in person, you can find all presentations on our YouTube channel.

Our 2024 Cyclone Day of Service was held at the end of February, we closed out Engineers Week by sponsoring the Chicago Architecture Center Engineering Fest at the Willis Tower. In addition to being the title sponsor, the Cyclone Team volunteered by hosting an activity table, the Catapult Challenge. We instructed children aged 6-12 how to build their own tower launcher using simple materials such as spoons, popsicle sticks and rubber bands. We staged a separate area so they could test their catapults to see how far they could launch. The event was a huge success with over 1200 attendees, the largest crowd for this annual event to date.

We closed out the year by wishing one of our long-standing team members best wishes on his retirement. Frank Kohout, Director of Engineering, was with Cyclone for over 9 years and led the team to complete some of our most challenging projects and delivered some of our greatest successes. He utilized his experience to lead invaluable engineering training sessions to the team to help advance their careers. His dedication, wisdom and kindness has made a lasting impact over the years, and he will truly be missed. Best of luck Frank!

These are just a few of our highlights from last year, more notable achievements are listed below.

2024 Cyclone Energy Group Notable Achievements

Client/Project Awards

• KeHE Dallas and Iron Giant (Helen of Troy) were selected as finalists for the USGBC South Central Awards
• The Row at Fulton Market was selected as Green Globes Project of the Year Runner Up
• Fulton Labs awarded International TOBY Award for Life Science

Cyclone Achievements

• Cyclone was shortlisted for the Building Consultancy of the Year for the 2025 CIBSE Building Performance Awards
• Our Energy Engineering Team was awarded the ComEd Clutch Performer Award for the second year in a row

Mary Anderson

• Passed LEED GA Exam
• Earned Living Future Accreditation
• Earned Florida Green Professional Accreditation
• Achieved LEED AP Certification

Bahar Behforooz

• LEED GA Certification

Kate Bren

• Project StaSIO Design Competition Overall Winner for the second year in a row
• Passed PE Exam
• Earned Living Future Accreditation

Ricky Limeburner

• Passed ASHRAE BEAP Exam

Hongbo Lu

• LEED Green Associate

Allen Mei

• IES VE User of the Year Runner-Up and Best American Entry Awards
• Appointed to ASHRAE SSPC 90.1 as a non-voting member and consultant for the ECB Subcommittee

Li Pan

• Achieved Green Globes Professional Certification
• Achieved WELL AP Certification
• LEED AP O+M

Emmy Riley

• Appointed to Building Energy Resource Hub Advisory Board

Jason Sippel

• Passed CDT Exam

Jed Starner

• BPI Total Building Performance Verification
• Earned Living Building Challenge Certificate from International Living Future Institute

 Karl Walsh

• Earned WELL AP Credential

New Team Members

• Li Pan, Sustainability Analyst
• Shoib Mohammed Saber Hussain, Building Analyst
• Bahar Behforooz, Sustainability Analyst
• Hongbo Lu, Building Analyst

Emerging Engineers 2024

• Hongbo Lu
• Cole Kincart

Promotions

• Mary Anderson, Sustainability Analyst
• Karl Walsh, Sustainability Team Technical Leader
• Vinit Gala, Senior Building Analyst

Project Certifications

LEED Platinum

• Project Dolphin

LEED Gold

• The Reed
• Penske Channahon
• Hogan Bioscience Lab

LEED Silver

• 345 N Morgan
• Greater Chicago Food Depository Meal Prep Facility
• Albion Nashville
• DHL Alliance
• Project Venus
• Boombox
• Public Storage Pleasanton
• S&C Electric Palatine
• ISTHA M-5

 LEED Certified

• Penske Greensboro
• Penske Akron
• Penske Boise
• Penske Madison
• Penske Pensacola
• Penske Loowell
• Scranton Logistics

 3 Green Globes

• 900 West Randolph
• Rush Specialty Hospital

2 Green Globes

• The Lydian
• Evo Union Park
• Parq Fulton
• 1400 Wabash Apartments
• 1225 W Fulton Markete
• 869 Blackhawk
• The Thompson

WELL Health and Safety Rating

• 1165 N Clark
• Hearn Portfolios

ComEd Utility Incentives

• Jobs Completed – 4
• Deemed Savings – 872,185 kWh
• Incentives – $216,660

Retro-Commissioning & Monitoring Based Commissioning 

Over 1,000,000 kWh in savings this calendar year and ranked in the top two providers out of a pool of 36.

Energy Modeling 

Won IES-VE modeling award of the year, grew the team with fresh talent and ventured into new and improved service offerings such as data center CFD modeling. Saved countless projects capital cost savings on construction costs by optimizing the code energy compliance.