#12: Melissa Wenzel—Adaptive Reuse, Sustainability, Deconstruction

Melissa Wenzel is the Built Environment Sustainability Administrator and has worked for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency for over 2 decades. Her current focus is on creating system-wide change within the building material management system. Working with key stakeholders across the state, Melissa focuses on reuse of buildings and building materials, and works to prevent building materials from going to landfills by encouraging preservation & renovation, reuse, and repair of buildings and building materials. She graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Education, and successfully completed a Sustainability in the Workplace Certificate Program in 2016 from Hamline University. She lives by her work motto: “human being first, government employee second.”