What’s Green About This Workplace?

“Latitude Engineering is a small company here in Tucson. It is hard to compete with places like Bookman’s where the whole idea of the company is “reuse”, but I think Latitude is worth mentioning because they are trying to be green without that being the main premise behind the company.

Latitude Engineering is a product development and design group that also specializes in unmanned systems integration. It is composed of a group of Tucsonans that are engineers, designers, programmers, etc. that help make projects work better or more efficiently. They work closely with partner individuals, companies, universities, and research institutions.

So where is the green? It starts in Latitude’s workplace, which is in an old art studio downtown. Jason Douglas, the owner wanted to be in downtown Tucson, so he and his employees could walk to lunch and support Tucson’s economy at the same time. Also with being downtown, he and many of his employees can walk, bike, or skateboard into work! The building itself has lots of natural light through skylights and a workshop bay door. When it is cool enough out, they open everything up for fresh air and they rarely need extra lights. It is better insulated than their last location, so the utility costs are nearly the same for a much larger area, even when the temperatures are not so nice out. They do have recycle bins in the office space and I even caught them using corn-based recyclable utensils at lunches. They share a patio space with a few other businesses which is nice to have a “community garden feel” at work.

As to their business, they do work on unmanned projects which save a lot of energy when you can replace a full sized airplane or helicopter running for days with a small “toy-sized” aircraft or a statcam surveillance balloon! They have even helped in an expedition to Greenland to monitor the glacier melts. I would definitely consider this small company both “earth smart” and “people smart” and very deserving of Arizona’s Greenest Workplace!”

“Latitude designs and develops UAV aircraft every one of which save our world barrels of oil!”