Lynn Yandell | Movers & Shakers 2012 — Innovators

Green Energizer

Vitals

CURRENT POSITION
Director of Information Technology
Fayetteville Public Library, AR

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DEGREE
BS, Computer Systems Engineering, University of Arkansas, College of Engineering, Fayetteville, 1992

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CHAIR
Polaris Users Group steering committee

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SOLAR PROJECT BLOG
Fayetteville Public Library Solar
Project Fayetteville

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IMPROVING WILDLIFE HABITATS
Has lobbied in Washington, DC, for Trout Unlimited and National Wildlife Federation

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Photo ©Sean McGinty Photography LLC

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“A strong commitment to customer service is something deeply ingrained from my time at Wal-Mart corporate,” says Lynn Yandell, who was a senior information systems programmer and analyst there from 1993 to 1996. “You must have ‘buy in’ from your customer base to make a project a success.”

Yandell took that sense of commitment, along with an unflagging can-do attitude, to his current post at the Fayetteville Public Library (FPL), where he rallied colleagues and the community to transform the library into a model of green energy efficiency. Forging partnerships between FPL and the city, local businesses, and the University of Arkansas, Yandell oversaw the installation of a 60-panel solar test bed on the library roof—an innovation that benefits the entire community.

After joining FPL in 2008, Yandell beat out over 500 other libraries to win a $60,000 International City/County Management Public Library innovation grant for the solar test bed. He then spent nine months planning and raising more money: $109,000 in labor and in-kind funding, plus $7600 from FPL. The system went up in July 2010, generating 13 kilowatts of power—the energy equivalent of three Arkansas homes, Yandell says—enough to supply both the library and the local energy grid. FPL also hosted a series of green energy programs, and $8500 from the Arkansas Energy Office funded a solar educational kiosk.

FPL is now seeing green in other ways: the library received over $30,000 from the Arkansas Energy Office’s solar rebate program for 2011—money that will go toward future green products. For supplying green energy to the local grid last year, FPL got another $3500-plus rebate from AEP/Swepco (American Electrical Power/Southwestern Electrical Power Company).

Inside the library, Yandell cut server energy use by 66 percent and energy at catalog stations by 90 percent. He accomplished this in part by installing remote systems to power the computers on and off and by replacing tower computers needing 250 watts of power with thin clients—low-end terminals sufficient for searching the catalog that require only 25 watts to operate.

FPL’s solar project has inspired two others, says Yandell: one at the University of Arkansas that “duplicated ours right down to the educational kiosk” and another at L’Oreal USA in North Little Rock.

His upbeat approach gets the job done, says FPL interim director Lolly Greenwood. “When presented with a problem or an issue, Lynn quotes his grandfather. He says, ‘Ain’t nothing but a chicken wing!’ ”

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