April 26, 2018
After 42 years of service, Bill Beachy, Vice President of Energy Solutions at Community Housing Partners (CHP), hung up his CHP hat on April 13.
Beachy spent his career improving the lives of more than 100,000 people across Virginia, the U.S., and South America through the Department of Energy Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP). The WAP grew from an immediate need in the 1970s to lessen the U.S. dependence on foreign oils while helping improve the energy efficiency, health, and safety of our country’s most vulnerable families.
Beachy started working in weatherization straight out of college in 1976 as a CETA (Comprehensive Employment and Training Act) worker within the newly formed WAP. His first job was working as the weatherization coordinator with the Crater District Area on Aging in Petersburg, Virginia. During the 1980s, Beachy worked as the WAP state training coordinator for the Virginia Community Action Partnership. This position led him to serve as the state manager for the Virginia Weatherization Assistance Program for the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) for more than a decade.
In 1992, Beachy helped form the Virginia-based Association of Energy Conservation Professionals (AECP) with the mission to provide, promote, and advocate for energy conservation. Beachy served as board president for more than 15 years before his retirement.
Billy Weitzenfeld, Executive Director of AECP, said, “Bill is a legendary guy with a legendary work ethic. His dedication to the program and his years of service have been essential to its success.”
Beachy joined the CHP team in 1999 and helped launch a weatherization training program, often traveling throughout the Southeast to provide classroom and hands-on training to industry professionals. This training initiative has since grown in to the CHP Energy Solutions Research and Training Center, which has trained over 40,000 individuals in the U.S., Canada, and South America.
During his time at CHP, Beachy also oversaw the tremendous growth of the nonprofit’s weatherization service areas, expanding from just 20 localities in northern Virginia to 39 localities including those in the New River Valley, the I-64 corridor from Highland County to Louisa County, and most recently, the County of Spotsylvania and City of Fredericksburg. Beachy has grown the program at CHP to be the 12th largest DOE sub-grantee of WAP services in the nation out of the almost 800 sub-grantees of weatherization. At CHP, he managed over 60 employees in three offices and oversaw dozens of sub-contractors across the state.
Throughout his more than four decades serving families across Virginia, the U.S., and abroad, Beachy has been a mentor to other sub grantees and served on countless state and federal committees and groups to improve services provided by the WAP.
Meghan McMillen, Senior Manager at CHP Energy Solutions, credits a great deal of her professional success to Beachy. “Bill helped shape my career and taught me so much about leadership and the weatherization program,” McMillen said.
CHP Vice President of Energy Solutions, Mark Jackson, also attributes much of his knowledge about the program to Beachy. “Bill was my greatest partner and mentor in my professional career,” said Jackson, who described Bill as a “legend” in the weatherization field. “While Bill’s passion, integrity, work ethic and friendship will be sorely missed at CHP, we thank him for his years of service and wish him the best in a much-deserved retirement.”
View a Facebook photo gallery from Bill Beachy’s retirement celebration.