SFPS has its own sustainability superhero

Lisa Randall needs a new job title. Right now, it’s sustainability program manager for Santa Fe Public Schools. It doesn’t come close to describing the incredible amount of money she saves the district through huge increases in energy and water efficiency.

She’s a local sustainability superhero, which may not be a bad new title.

Growing up in a small town in Maine, Randall had no idea what Santa Fe would be like when she made her way here 30 years ago as a kid out of college. Twenty years ago, she got the education bug and began as an AmeriCorps volunteer at Agua Fría Elementary. Quickly realizing the importance and satisfaction of teaching, she became credentialed and continued at the school as a fifth grade teacher for 10 more years.

It’s easy to imagine a group of fifth graders enthralled by the commonsense practicality of recycling and conservation undoubtedly espoused by Randall to her charges. It was a skill set also recognized by then-Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez, who tapped Randall to leave the classroom

and join the administration in a role she has defined and refined over time.

Significant achievements in sustainability often are not visible. Better windows, more insulation, water-saving devices, energy-saving lighting, improved indoor air quality and efficient mechanical equipment are unrecognizable to the casual observer. Where they are seen is on the bottom line.

Getting there has been an ongoing data-driven sales job Randall has successfully employed with changing administrations and school board members. Today, what she suggests gets done.

Some ideas have bucked initial public sentiment, especially around athletic fields and the ungodly amount of water necessary to keep grass green, safe and playable. As someone raised in a place where lawns are mowed twice a week during Maine’s short summers, she certainly has a love for grass, but when natural turf can consume 10 acre-feet of water every year at a school site, it’s a wasted resource we cannot afford.

To put 10 acre-feet in perspective, it is enough saved water to offset the needs of over 60 new homes in Santa Fe. Put another way, if an acrefoot of water is worth $20,000, then the school district can save hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in its operating budget. That money can be used in the classroom.

Perhaps the most visible testament to Randall’s dogged creativity is the sea of solar panels now seen on the campus of Santa Fe High School. She discovered a bonding instrument had been approved by the state that local schools could use for energy efficiency programs. The bond had been tried by a couple of small districts in the southern part of the state but basically had been ignored as a financing tool.

Randall was able to connect a bond consultant with Regina Wheeler, the CEO of Positive Energy Solar at the time, and fashion a deal with the district. Nearly a megawatt of panels were installed at no cost to the district, instantly saving money with free energy. The energy saved pays back bond purchasers and puts cash into school coffers. It wasn’t just free energy; it was free money.

Recycling programs are where Randall began with the schools. They’re still an ongoing passion. Now more than 3,000 pounds a day of cafeteria food waste are redirected to Reunity Resources in Agua Fría village, building mountains of high-quality garden mulch.

Yankee ingenuity? Maybe. But now she’s unquestionably a sustainability superhero.