From the Desk of Tom Lyman

The start of the new year is a great time to reflect on the past year and look ahead to new opportunities in 2025. Implementing our robust Public Buildings Service National Portfolio Plan, we made great progress in 2024. In the past 13 months, PBS moved 35 buildings into the disposal process, shedding six million square feet of underutilized space! The disposition of these buildings, which had outlived their federal need, allows PBS to avoid $1.8 billion in costs while giving these buildings new life by reuse in communities across the country. GSA also exceeded our targets for small business spending and we earned some of the highest customer satisfaction scores in government. We are grateful for the continued collaboration with our federal clients!

With its first solar installation in 1978, GSA has been a leader in sustainability and energy efficiency for decades. Since 2008, GSA has reduced greenhouse gas emissions from federal buildings by more than half, reduced energy use intensity by almost 25%, and saved taxpayers $826 million by cutting energy use throughout our portfolio. We continue our efforts to achieve 100% carbon pollution-free electricity on a net annual basis by 2030 and a net-zero emissions building portfolio by 2045. In FY24, more than 63% of the electricity we purchased was carbon pollution-free. This past November, GSA was honored with a U.S. Green Building Council 2024 Leadership Award for Organizational Excellence, given to outstanding organizations whose vision, leadership and commitment have significantly advanced the green building industry.

We are also honored that the Associated Builders and Contractors Keystone Chapter recognized our new Sylvia H. Rambo U.S. Courthouse in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, with an Excellence in Construction Award in November 2024.

We continue to modernize our assets to ensure they will serve our customer agencies’ needs, and those of the American people, for many years to come. We recently completed another phase of renovations at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services headquarters campus in Woodlawn, Maryland, helping the agency modernize and increase capacity at their headquarters, with the added goal of reduced long-term leasing costs.

We also made some recent updates to our leadership team and Mid-Atlantic PBS organization. We welcome Kevin Vickery to his new role as Philadelphia Field Office Manager, where he will manage services related to the operations, maintenance and repair of federal buildings for GSA customers in center city Philadelphia. PBS Mid-Atlantic Region has also created a new Fire Protection Engineering section, led by John A. Welling, III, who will lead our team of fire protection engineers to provide oversight of complex and high-risk projects, interpret and implement fire safety policy, and ensure regional consistency on fire protection issues.

As GSA continues to execute our water quality management program, we invite you to learn more from experts in the field. In this edition, we share information on how to view our recorded Client Enrichment Series session on the topic, as well as a short video where our expert consultants from Special Pathogens Laboratory discuss legionella and GSA’s water quality management efforts.

We’ll continue to work together on many projects in 2025, some already underway and some new. We invite you to register for our Client Enrichment Series Principles of Global Project Management webinar on Jan. 30, where we’ll discuss the major components of each project phase and the necessary steps, roles and responsibilities along the way to successful project delivery. We also invite you to explore our one-stop browsing site, where you’ll find links to PBS resources and guidance on a wide range of workplace-related topics at your fingertips.

Our GSA team is energized and focused on meeting the evolving needs of our client agencies and the American people now and in the future. Wishing you a happy and healthy 2025!

Tom Lyman
Acting Regional Commissioner
Public Buildings Service
GSA Mid-Atlantic Region

This article is part of the Winter issue of the FOCUS newsletter. Please visit the Focus Newsletter page to read our newsletter.