Peterson,Thomas A.

Thomas A. Peterson has a diverse and unique background that has provided him with a wide base of knowledge that enables him to speak in broad terms about energy efficiency housing matters.  He is a native New Englander, who now resides in Southern Maine.  He earned a BSBA in Business Management from U. Mass. – Dartmouth in 1971 and an MBA in Marketing from Tulane University – New Orleans in 1973.

Beyond academics he did marketing research for five years for several Northeast retailers providing detailed written and oral presentations to top management. 

He became interested in solar energy in 1975 after the first "energy crisis".  In 1979, after the second “energy crisis”, he started his own company, Solar Design & Construction.  Thus, began his career in researching, designing, building, and promoting active and passive solar homes as well as increasingly energy efficient homes in Southern Maine.  Cost containment for his designs was always a top priority.

Initially paralleling his construction career, he began teaching Marketing and Management courses at St. Joseph’s College in Windham, Maine then at the University of Southern Maine in the Portland area. As a college professor, he honed his oral presentation skills. In addition, he also developed and presented Marketing Export Seminars for Canadian Federal and Provincial Governments for experienced businesses in the Provinces of New Brunswick & Nova Scotia.

As his knowledge of solar and energy efficient housing expanded, he wrote pamphlets for his company and conducted seminars at home shows, in addition to writing newspaper articles.

After years of developing highly energy efficient passive solar homes, he realized that the homes that he now designed and built used 75% less energy for heating and cooling than standard built energy efficient homes built to minimum codes.  To differentiate his housing concepts from those of standard Energy Efficient (EE) homes, he designated his homes as being Super Energy Efficient (SEE for short).

To promote his SEE homes, he researched the cost of ownership for such homes as well as information on government and mortgage programs that were available. Once amassed, he was amazed at how compelling an argument could be made for building every new or converting every existing home to SEE standards.  Energy dollar savings could cover the cost of financing SEE insulation upgrades for all new homes and for most existing homes. 

Realizing that no one else had ever compiled these facts in one place, prompted him to author his first book in 2012, ”SEE” The EMPOWERING Energy Solution.  Written as a “consumer” book, its intention was to inform the general public about the multiple and diverse benefits of SEE and to thus stimulate demand for energy efficient housing.  Society was essentially ignorant of the fact that a simple solution could help to solve many of the multiple and diverse problems that most countries and cultures face.  SEE can simply create countless manufacturing and local construction jobs, save home & building owners money, provide a hedge against rising energy costs, assure a vibrant long-term economy, significantly cut pollution, reduce foreign energy dependence, and make homes and buildings significantly more comfortable in which to live and work.  In addition, SEE homes and buildings can provide all of these benefits while paying for the additional cost of building to SEE’s higher insulation standards with energy dollar savings.

Given the World’s current economic and environmental problems, he feels that what he has learned about SEE needs to become general public knowledge.  He now spends much of his time promoting SEE concepts to the World.


SEE - - A broad Based Solution for Many Problems

SEE stands for Super Energy Efficiency, as it applies to the building envelopes of homes and buildings.  The SEE standard challenges designers and builders to construct homes and buildings that use at least 75% less energy for heating and cooling than an identical HERS base house built to IECC-2006 insulation specifications.  This standard can be economically applied to both new homes as well as most existing structures.

Thomas A. Peterson has proven that this is an economical level of building envelope energy efficiency to achieve and that, if financed, energy dollar savings will usually more than cover any financing costs.  In addition to the financial savings for the homeowner, there are major economic and environmental benefits to be gained.