Meet Zachary Madding, Empire’s New Capital Program and Sustainability Manager 

(SARATOGA SPRINGS, NY — April 28, 2025) For Zachary Madding, joining the staff at Empire State University is something of a full-circle moment. When he and his wife—a SUNY Empire alum—moved from Oklahoma to New York state back in 2021, he says he “immediately set [his] sights on SUNY Empire, both for [his] future education needs and as a potential employer.” Now, after a year-long stint as the senior engineering technician for the city of Saratoga Springs, Madding has reached his goal by becoming the university’s new capital program and sustainability manager.  

“Empire is a great place to be. SUNY has initiated a Climate and Sustainability Action Plan for 2025, and it’s the same type of plan that I’m helping to develop for the city of Saratoga Springs,” he says, noting that he’s on the board of the city’s Climate Smart Task Force. “To be brought in at the ground level with all these new initiatives is really exciting.” 

Ahead, Madding shares a look at his new role and the university’s past and present sustainability work. 

Can you explain what the capital program and sustainability manager does? 
ZM: It’s really two distinct roles. A lot of campuses have an entire capital program management team and an entire sustainability team. I get to wear both hats solo, which is really exciting and also challenging. The capital program manager is responsible for planning and budgeting for construction projects, whether that’s new construction or renovation—basically anything that falls outside of the routine maintenance. The sustainability manager is responsible for all the initiatives contained in the 2025 Sustainability and Climate Action Plan. Since at Empire we don’t have residence halls, labs, cafeterias, [or any of] those things, sustainability for us means lowering our energy impact. The main focus for me is how we can include renewable energy and how we can become more efficient with the energy that we do use. 

What has SUNY Empire already done on the sustainability front? 
ZM: Broadly across all of SUNY, the average age of SUNY buildings is over 50 years old. At SUNY Empire, the buildings are on average a little under 20 years old, and we had to start building to LEED Silver specifications with all our new buildings maybe 15 years ago. All the major buildings in Saratoga Springs, [as well as] our Selden Building and our Rochester building, are built to that LEED Silver standard, which makes them very efficient and lower impact compared to most commercial construction throughout the state. Going forward, that’s going to be even tighter. We’re moving past LEED Silver and approaching net zero in all our new construction plans, but where we are today is several steps ahead of most of our peers. We’re also implementing new building management software that helps with improving the efficiency of our buildings and understanding exactly what’s going on with things like our HVAC systems and lighting and how we can adjust those settings to maybe get lower energy consumption while still making our occupants comfortable. We have relatively efficient, newer buildings to start with, so the gains that are left for us to realize are small and incremental, but they’re still important. 

In software development, they say the first 90% of the project takes 10% of the effort, and the last 10% of the project takes 90% of the effort. With decarbonization, electrification, and renewable energy, the same is true; the last few things to decarbonize are the hardest things to decarbonize. A lot of the low hanging fruit has been plucked, which is a big pat on the back to my predecessors and the team that was here when I joined. But I think it’s also important to recognize that it’s worth doing those last few things to get us where we want to be.  

What about the university’s outdoor spaces? Have sustainability measures been implemented there, too? 
ZM: We have integrated pest management, which is sort of a fancy term for low-impact landscaping. We’re not spraying toxic weed killers or fungicides or pesticides or that sort of thing around our buildings. We’re using the least toxic compounds possible. 

There are some other things that are important for us to engage with, like biodiversity. So we want to talk about how we can include things like pollinator gardens and native plants. We want to mow less and let things be a little bit wilder and more insect friendly. Decarbonizing, of course, has an impact on the atmosphere, which is a very broad part of our outdoor environment. And we definitely need the right climate for pollinators and small animals to be successful for eco-diversity to take hold. We also have to remember to provide little safe spaces for reproduction and feeding and everything else to exist; smooth, hard surfaces everywhere don’t foster life. 

What are some short-term things on your bucket list that you’re working on right now? 
ZM: We’re looking at possibly renovating a building over at 113 West Avenue and, as part of that renovation, we want to take a very close look at what we can do for renewable energy. 111 and 113 West Ave. are in very close proximity to each other and are situated across a large parking lot that already has a geothermal field under it, which is helping with the energy needs at 113. But we want to expand that field and help offset the energy use that will be necessary at 111 post renovation. We’re also looking at possibly including solar [panels] on the roofs of both buildings. They’re both flat-roofed and could generate a lot of energy. There’s even the option of maybe including car covers, or awnings for cars to park under, that could be solar as well. 

We also want to include electric vehicle charging to go with all of this and encourage people who visit our buildings to drive zero-emission vehicles wherever possible. [At SUNY Empire], we have a relatively small fleet [of vehicles], but we’re moving toward zero-emission vehicles like battery electric vehicles.  President Vollendorf is driving an all-electric vehicle, and we have a plug-in hybrid SUV as part of our fleet as well. We’re definitely putting a lot of effort toward improving access to chargers for people who use our buildings and also our fleet operations. Going forward, the majority of our vehicle purchases will be zero-emission vehicles like battery electric vehicles.  

I also want to explore bus stops. The city has some initiatives around bike shares, and I want to see how we can incorporate the city’s initiative for bike sharing into our campuses and get people out of personal vehicles and into either biking, walking, or public transportation wherever possible. 

What does life outside of the university look like for you? 
ZM: I volunteer quite a bit. I’m a board member for the Saratoga Springs Climate Smart Task Force, and I’m on the Climate and Energy Committee for Sustainable Saratoga. I volunteer with the Project Management Institute of Upstate New York and with a small land conservancy in Saratoga Springs known as SoBro, too. I also love hiking, and, in the past, I’ve gardened a lot, although I haven’t quite adapted to upstate New York’s climate for gardening as much here. I’m still learning, but I do love to grow plants whenever possible. Also, my wife and I cook, and we spend a lot of time together in the kitchen, especially in the winter. 

Last question, just for fun: What’s on your reading list these days? 
ZM: There is never a wrong day to read Emerson’s essay, “Self-Reliance”! However, I am currently on a daily streak of 3-plus years on Duolingo, where I rank among the top 1% of over 500 million language learners worldwide. In that three-year span, I also completed certification as a Project Management Professional and developed some skills using Python programming for data analysis. And for the last several months, I have been contributing to the City of Saratoga Springs Climate Action Plan through researching and editing. I suppose other interests have crowded out my reading time.