Monica Mack Didn’t Find Her Space in Commissioning, So She Created It

This is a profile of Monica Mack, a commissioning agent who founded her own firm, M3T Cx Authorities, about 13 years ago. Commissioning is the process of checking that a building's systems, like heating and cooling equipment, actually work the way they're designed to once installed. Mack started in this field on Navy submarines before moving into commercial buildings, labs, refineries, and oil and gas sites.

The piece covers her experience as one of few women in a male-dominated trade, and a turning point after she worked on a project she considered unsafe, including fatal accidents on site. After leaving that job and going through therapy, she eventually started her own commissioning company so she could set her own safety standards and pull employees off a site if conditions felt wrong. She talked about struggling early on to find properly fitting safety gear, which she says has gotten somewhat easier over time, though specialized sizes can still take months to source.

She also described how her approach to being taken seriously on the job changed. Rather than trying to convince every skeptic in the room, she now focuses on identifying problems and keeping a project moving, and says a commissioning agent's job is to solve problems and build the team, not to be the one who knows the most.

This is a career and workplace story about the commissioning profession rather than a change to any program, technology, or rebate that affects homeowners directly.