There is a popular quote that reads, “If you do what you love, you will never work a day in your life.” Celso’s career has been no exception. The Los Angeles native started as an engineer at Hines-managed 10100 Santa Monica office building in 2000. He is now General Engineering Manager at One Wilshire in Los Angeles, one of the largest data centers in the country, where Hines provides engineering services for the property owner/managers.
A day in the life of Celso begins with a meeting with the engineers who have concluded the graveyard shift. “We call this a pass-down,” Celso explains. “We make notes of activities completed overnight, such as generator tests, UPS maintenance, fuel deliveries, along with any issues found and follow-up that needs to be completed by the engineers who are just starting their shifts.”
The remainder of Celso’s day includes meetings with data center managers, contractors and construction teams, assisting with controls troubleshooting, project planning, updating electrical riser diagrams, reviewing utility variances, and electrical bill backs.
“Our team recently completed a building-wide LED lighting retrofit which included replacing the 50-year-old exterior signage. We are in the process of designing a new central plant, expanding the existing electrical infrastructure to provide five additional megawatts of power, upgrading the domestic water system, and planning the installation of a new 3.2 megawatt generator within the next year”
Celso’s role has allowed him to work with engineers both domestic and abroad. He assisted with the translation of information to create a Spanish version of the Hines Engineering Standards for the engineering team in Mexico, and he participated as a panelist at the last engineering conference in Panama.
“Learning and sharing knowledge with others and seeing that knowledge bear fruit is one of the most rewarding aspects of my job,” Celso says. “Our duty is to make buildings better by employing Hines’ Engineering Standards.”
When he isn’t playing the piano or reading his favorite philosophical works, Celso can be found refurbishing antiquated computers. He is an expert at installing Linux-based operating systems that make the machines as good as new.