Jerry Pindus, founder and CEO of U.S. Energy Group, a metro-New York based firm which develops and integrates energy control, monitoring and analysis systems, is a pioneer when it comes to saving property managers' money and conserving energy. It's this visionary passion which leads him to innovate.
Long before green buildings, LEED ratings and sustainability initiatives were the topics of the day, Pindus was learning the importance of energy efficiency from his parents while growing up in the South Bronx. Lessons such as closing a refrigerator door immediately and turning lights off when leaving a room were not just taught, they were fully enforced. And Pindus definitely learned. In fact, legend has it that as a teenager, he was known to raid the household fridge so quickly that a full meal was prepared in just a few seconds and consumed in complete darkness.
Pindus graduated from NYU's Business School and earned certificates in Energy Conservation. During the early 1960s, he served as an active reservist in the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Dix, N.J. His natural inclination to conserve resources was appreciated by his fellow servicemen and was useful in his work as a supply sergeant preparing shipments to send to the troops readying for the Bay of Pigs invasion.
"I grew up learning not to waste anything," Pindus explained. "In the Army, I became known as the guy who made efficient use of every resource we had. After a while, everyone was bringing me their junk and saying 'What can we use this for?'"
In 1966, Pindus became a licensed real estate broker and then a property owner and manager. He purchased his first multiple dwelling with his father, Ted. They quickly acquired additional buildings and started converting rentals into cooperatives. The Pindus organization grew to eventually own and manage over 1,000 apartment units. They also extended into the coin laundry machine business and operated more than 3,000 machines.
In 1973, Pindus faced his most challenging business crisis, as he risked losing his buildings as a result of the oil embargo and rising interest rates. "I was determined to hold onto those buildings," Pindus explained. "All of a sudden those efficiency lessons from my youth - turning lights off, avoid wasting energy - they all rushed back to me and I began thinking of ways that we property owners could run our buildings more efficiently."
Pindus started designing an Energy Management System (EMS) which would prevent overheating and warn owners of any fuel waste. He was way ahead of the curve in 1978, when he launched U.S. Energy Heat Controls and began installing his energy management system in buildings from Philadelphia, Penn.to Poughkeepsie and throughout the New York metro area. Today, there are thousands of U.S. Energy Computerized Heat Controls in the field and more are being added each day.
What was revolutionary thirty years ago is now an accepted practice. The industry fully recognizes that installing an EMS is the single most cost-effective measure a property manager can take to retrofit an older building to be energy efficient. He guarantees his EMS users a minimum 15% savings on fuel consumption and a return on investment in less than two years.
Pindus approaches his company, now called U.S. Energy Group, with a visionary passion. Due to his personal experience and requests from other building owners, he developed his most recent successes: The Verifierâ„¢ Digital Fuel Gauge, which is the first product he has launched nationally, and the vanguard USE MANAGERâ„¢, an Internet-based monitoring service, which provides essential alerts and crucial building information to help property managers calibrate their buildings for peak operating efficiency and manage their entire portfolio of buildings in less than 12 minutes a day.
Pindus, who has been nicknamed "Mr. Efficiency," is often credited with revolutionizing the way heating systems work in residential buildings and was honored for this in 2004 by the Bronx-Manhattan North Association of Realtors. Today property owners have saved hundreds of millions of dollars and conserved energy as a result of using U.S. Energy Group's products and services.
"These are solutions created by a property owner, for property owners," Pindus explains. "I designed these products to provide the essential information that I always needed in a useful and actionable format."
Pindus's supportive family includes his wife Marie, his son Jesse, his two daughters, Renee and Erynn, his son-in-law Michael and his four grandchildren: Lucy, Mary, John and Jane. Of course, the lessons of his youth that built his business are now being taught to his grandchildren.

"Recently, I caught the grandkids standing in front of an open refrigerator door," Pindus explained. "Of course, I'm Mr. Efficiency, so I had to put a stop to that right away. I'm teaching them well though… the oldest can now prepare a sandwich in under 10 seconds and eat it in the dark (or just using the glow from her iPod)." Tags: