Helen J. Kessler, FAIA, LEED Fellow, WELL AP is Principal of HJKessler Associates and of Upfront Regenerative Design. She has over 35 years of experience in sustainable design, energy efficiency and renewable energy and is a nationally recognized green building design consultant. She was one of the first architects in Chicago to work with LEED and routinely facilitates eco-charrettes and an integrative design process. Her current focus is on regenerative development and design and how that process can regenerate communities and ecosystems.

Helen has been sustainable design team leader, LEED consultant, lighting designer, energy efficiency consultant and/or commissioning authority on over 80 LEED projects. She has completed work on twelve LEED Platinum certified projects and over forty LEED Gold certified projects. Some notable Platinum projects include Northwestern University’s New Kellogg School of Management and Northwestern’s Kresge Centennial Hall renovation, Exelon’s Headquarters Project (two), the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation of Evanston, Legacy Charter School and Sarah E. Goode STEM Academy in Chicago. She has created sustainability guidelines for Northwestern University and the City of Chicago Branch Public Libraries. She is consulting on a WELL project for the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign.

Helen is a former Board member of the USGBC Illinois Chapter, inaugural and long-term co-chair of the Education and Programs committee and former voting member of the national LEED for Commercial Interiors Core Committee. She is past co-chair of the AIA Chicago Committee on the Environment, chaired the Energy Code Committee, which created Chicago’s first energy code, and was a voting member on the ASHRAE committee that created Guideline 0 – The Building Commissioning Process.

Prior to starting her own firm, Helen was Executive Vice President at Sieben Energy Associates, where she created and managed its green building practice. She was a Project Director for Hyatt Hotels (where she managed renovations at 14 hotels) and for Richard I. Rubin & Company where she managed the development of the Hotel Atop the Bellevue, which was part of an 800,000 sf mixed use development. Prior to obtaining her MBA, she researched passive solar heating and cooling and designed solar homes at the University of Arizona Environmental Research Laboratory.

Helen teaches courses on sustainable construction and systems thinking at Northwestern University and was a member of the USGBC’s LEED Faculty. Helen has written hundreds of articles on green building, energy efficiency and solar energy and has given or moderated hundreds of presentations on these subjects.

Helen has received numerous awards, including the Illinois Real Estate Journal Impact Award (2008), Alumnus of the Year from the University of Arizona Honors College (2009), the Intent to Matter Natural Leader Award from the USGBC Illinois Chapter (2010), the Green Mind Award from the USGBC Illinois Chapter (2011), the 2012 USGBC Illinois Chapter Leader Award and the R. Buckminster Fuller Award for Social Good from AIA Illinois (2016). She is a licensed architect and has a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Arizona and an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Helen is a member of the inaugural class of LEED Fellows (2011).