Zach Baumer leads the City of Austin’s Climate Program, providing strategic direction to meet our city’s goal of net-zero community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. Under Zach’s guidance, the Climate Program is responsible for: Tracking greenhouse gas inventories at the City department level and community-wide. Collaborating with City leaders to improve sustainability performance and reduce departmental carbon footprints. Monitoring advances in technology and changes in cost structures to continuously refine emissions reduction strategies. Coordinating with City staff to identify vulnerabilities and prepare for the impacts of climate change. In each of these efforts, Zach strives to continue Austin’s leadership efforts in addressing climate change. Before joining the City of Austin in 2011, Zach served as a Sustainability and Environmental Consultant. In that capacity, he collaborated with major private corporations and public entities to create and manage overall sustainability strategies that included calculating greenhouse gas inventories, developing tracking and monitoring protocols, and creating emissions reduction plans. In this capacity, he prepared a Corporate Sustainability Report for CPS Energy, provided a Sustainability Plan and staff training program for Tennessee Valley Authority, performed an evaluation of a carbon offset project for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, and completed a Climate Action Plan Cost-Benefit Analysis for the City of Palo Alto. Zach is a LEED Accredited Professional with an MBA in Sustainable Management from the Presidio School of Management in San Francisco. Zach is a native of Indianapolis and holds undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from Purdue University.

An expert in sustainable building design with nearly 20 years of experience in the built environment developing low energy, high performance solutions for buildings focused on the health and wellbeing of the people who use them. His career focuses on developing design solutions incorporating building needs, architectural intent, and building science and performance. He is actively engaged in the local and national discussions to create a more sustainable built environment.

Kurt has over 20 years of utility industry leadership in the areas of sustainability, grid integrated buildings, distributed energy resource integration and optimization, transportation electrification, electric vehicle charging infrastructure deployment, decarbonization, utility strategy and the energy transition. He is currently leading the nation’s first green building program through a period of explosive construction growth and corresponding program growth in the City of Austin. Under his direction the program has expanded its scope to include grid interactive buildings, decarbonization of embodied carbon, equity and virtual outreach.

Ashley Besic is a Senior Manager for the Greenprint Center for Building Performance at the Urban Land Institute (ULI), a nonprofit education and research institute that focuses on issues of land use, real estate, and urban development. Greenprint, part of ULI’s research centers & initiatives, is focused on climate mitigation and net zero, making the business case for green buildings by tying reducing carbon to increases in asset value. At Greenprint, Ashley manages implementation of the ULI Net Zero Imperative, a multi-year initiative to accelerate decarbonization in the built environment with public sector and private real estate leaders at the local level. Prior to her time at ULI, Ashley was a Sustainability Project Manager at LivCor, a Blackstone Portfolio Company where she was instrumental in laying the foundation for the multifamily firm’s Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) department and driving their sustainability programming forward. Ashley is a passionate real estate professional interested in the intersection between the built environment and self-efficacy. She aspires to use her academic knowledge and research experiences to restore deteriorating neighborhoods to rejuvenate the built environment and promote healthy lifestyles for its residents, specifically youth. Ashley holds a Master of Science in Real Estate from the Marshall Bennett Institute of Real Estate at Roosevelt University, and a B.A. in Multidisciplinary Studies from the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is a Fitwel Ambassador.

Tyler Buckler (Director of Development & Investments / Principal) Tyler is responsible for the execution and success of Cielo’s development pipeline, from initial inception and business plan through design, construction, and lease-up. Tyler gets things done, embracing the unknown and tackling myriad challenges to cultivate Cielo’s unique project vision and create exceptional results on asset value. He’s never intimidated by new challenges, preferring to take a hands-on approach to the entitlement process, design direction, marketing/leasing strategy, and document negotiation. Tyler has spent his entire career in real estate, starting in project leasing and brokerage before gaining multi-faceted experience in office, retail, multi-family, and hotel projects. Tyler collaborates with Cielo’s development partners to ensure everyone achieves success and has led the development teams on some of our most successful projects including Third + Shoal, Foundry I, Foundry II, and 220 S Congress. After growing up in small-town Texas, Tyler moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas at Austin where he received a BBA in Finance. He is an active member of the Associate Council for McCombs Real Estate Center and the Urban Land Institute, and he sits on the board of the Downtown Austin Alliance.