By Design A Smart Building Discussion with Jacob Jackson

What happens when you spend over two decades working on some of the most massive infrastructure projects in the country and realize the traditional building automation model is completely broken? You go out and build a company to fix it. In this episode of It's a Controls Problem, we sit down with Dave Mulcahy, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Unified Controls. Dave takes us behind the scenes of his 20+ year journey in the trenches of the trade, opening up about the brutal early lessons that shaped his engineering philosophy and the exact moment he knew he had to leave a stable career to start something new. We dive deep into the meat of the industry's biggest headaches: why building systems remain so frustratingly siloed, how to build a technology-agnostic strategy so owners actually own their own data, and the reality of keeping OT networks secure without locking facility managers out of their own systems. Finally, we tackle the massive "age out" and knowledge loss our trade is facing as veteran technicians retire. Dave shares how we can capture that critical institutional wisdom, what the next generation needs to know to survive the steep learning curve, and why he’s genuinely optimistic about the future of smart buildings. Whether you're a seasoned master systems integrator, a building engineer drowning in alarm noise, or just starting out in the sandbox, this conversation is packed with real-world perspective you won't want to miss.

How do you protect a building’s brain while pushing the boundaries of what it can do? Jacob Jackson of Aptitude returns to the show to trace his journey from the trenches of building automation to becoming a self-published author and independent publisher. We catch up on his latest role, the massive insights he’s unlocked since his last visit, and what it’s really like to build a media engine from scratch to give technical voices a platform. Then, we’re diving straight into the weeds on cybersecurity. Jacob breaks down where controls contractors are still dropping the ball on operational technology (OT) security, how to bridge the gap between legacy hardware and modern IT expectations, and exactly what he would add to his book if he were rewriting it for today’s fast-moving landscape. We wrap up with a heavy dose of industry reality: the stubborn bottlenecks still plaguing major construction projects, what a truly intelligent society looks like on a macroscopic scale, and Jacob's raw advice for BAS professionals navigating the massive career fluctuations and consolidations hitting the space right now.

Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence right now, but how much of it is just marketing noise, and how much is actually moving the needle in the mechanical room? This week, we are welcoming back industry visionary Keith Gipson to move past the surface-level talk and dig into the front-line realities of AI adoption in building automation. Keith updates us on some massive recent project wins and breaks down exactly what happens when advanced algorithms find the hidden potential that standard BAS setups completely miss. We dive deep into the real friction points holding owners back, how to completely flip the script on IT and governance pushback, and why over-regulating your data can actually choke your building's performance. Keith also shares his perspective on where the absolute biggest opportunities for scaling are hiding right now, the critical difference between a "smart" building and a truly intelligent one, and some bold predictions for the future of the facility engineering workforce. If you are tired of the buzzwords and want a blunt look at how machine learning is actually reshaping our industry, you won't want to miss this conversation.

The building automation industry is facing a massive talent crisis, but the bottleneck isn't a lack of bodies, it’s an outdated approach to finding, training and hiring them. On this episode of It's a Controls Problem, we dive deep into the human architecture of smart buildings with Diana Vargas of Stacks+Joules. A non-profit powerhouse, Stacks+Joules is completely disrupting traditional workforce development by taking tech-marginalized youth and adults and fast-tracking them into advanced building automation and energy management careers. We break down how they utilize virtual sandboxes and digital twin environments to give students the freedom to fail, experiment, and build deep technical confidence before they ever step into a live mechanical room. Diana shares how their project-based curriculum prepares graduates to look past flashy software dashboards and tackle the critical, boots-on-the-ground hardware issues that actually keep facilities running efficiently. Finally, we look at how businesses can stop admiring the problem and start solving their talent shortages. Diana lays out a vision for where the built environment needs to go over the next decade, how systemic industry culture must evolve, and exactly how contractors, engineering firms, and end-users can partner with Stacks+Joules to build a more resilient, climate-critical workforce. Logic Link Collective: ⁠⁠⁠Donate to Stacks+Joules⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Get Involved⁠⁠

This week, we sit down with Nicholas Gayeski, co-founder of Clockworks Analytics, to break down the sheer physics of how buildings actually work—and why our current systems so often fail them. Nick took a very different path into building automation, moving from the academic research labs of MIT straight into the messy reality of the mechanical room. In this conversation, we look at the industry through that "physics-first" lens to find out where the gap between engineered sequences and actual valve performance truly lies. We dive into the friction holding facilities back today, exploring how to shift from stressful, reactionary firefighting to true condition-based maintenance. Nick gives us his unfiltered thoughts on the digital noise flooding the market, the real role of AI, and why a standardized data ontology like Haystack or Brick is absolutely non-negotiable if we ever want our buildings to speak the same language. Finally, we look ahead at what this means for the new guard entering the trades. Nick shares his advice for the next generation of digital natives and paints a picture of what a data-optimized, perfectly operated city could look like if we finally solve the controls problem. Logic Link Collective: ⁠⁠Donate to Stacks+Joules⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Get Involved⁠