ABOUT - Max Zahniser
LEED®–AP Legacy 2003
LEED®–AP BD&C, EBO&M
USGBC LEED® Faculty™
NCARB | Associate AIA
Max has a broad background in architecture, including higher education, retail, residential, corporate office, healthcare and industrial projects. His work and experience also includes both traditional and high-performance/low-impact green buildings.
Following several years at a handful of architecture firms, Max went on to the U.S. Green Building Council, where he spent about 2 years as the LEED(r) Certification Manager. He then went on to function as the LEED Process & Integration Program Manager, LEED's technical and technological point person (both internally and outwardly), spearheading the program's internal process improvement efforts. In this role he also managed USGBC's relationship with Google, Adobe, Autodesk, and others, and provided support to LEED technical staff in a variety of ways.
In addition Max has played central roles in developing new business and certification processes and tools, and contributed to the development of LEED(r) for New Construction version 2.2, LEED(r) for Neighborhood Developments, LEED(r) for Homes, and LEED(r) for Schools. He supported development of these LEED rating systems in committee-based technical development and certification process & infrastructure development capacities. Since leaving USGBC he continues to support USGBC in its ongoing efforts to improve LEED, having served as a subject matter expert in the development of the workshop curricula around the new versions of the rating systems, and now serving as a member of the LEED Implementation Advisory Committee. This newly formed committee is an elected and appointed group of experts that influence USGBC policy and strategies relative to how LEED certification evolves on an ongoing basis. Max is also a member of LEED faculty, a small group of professionals across the country qualified and empowered to teach USGBC's LEED workshops.
Max has been cited/quoted as an expert on sustainability, green building, LEED and/or Building Information Modeling (BIM) in the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, San Francisco Chronicle, Building Design + Construction, Metropolis, Contract, Environmental Building News, and in live interviews for NPR stations. He also acted as a contributing author for a book published by Wiley in April of 2009, titled:
The Integrative Design Guide to Green Building - Redefining the Practice of Sustainability
Max spent a year as Director of Sustainability at Wallace Roberts & Todd (WRT), (a planning, landscape and architecture firm with a rich heritage in sustainable work), and started Praxis | Building Solutions, LLC in 2007. He also cofounded The Sustainability NEXUS, a non-profit seeking to coalesce the abundant, but fragmented energy already flowing into social and environmental initiatives. Max is currently Director of Sustainability at the University of Pennsylvania, in the business services division.
Max is also supporting the development of the B-Corporation certification system for beneficial companies, and a Technical Advisor for AASHE's STARS certification system for colleges and universities. He is an adjunct professor at Drexel University in the Architecture and Interiors department, a course designer and instructor at Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology, former co-chair of the board of directors of Green Village Philadelphia, a board of directors members of Theater of the Seventh Sister, a board of advisors member of Green Wizard and a former project reviewer for Architecture for Humanity.
FUN FACT:
Max is related to the late Howard Zahniser, the primary author of the Wilderness Act of 1964, which to this day protects over a 106 thousand acres of wilderness in the U.S.