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About

Steven Brown, Director & Principal Consultant

Mechanical Commissioning Lead with 20+ years commissioning complex mechanical and cooling systems across data centres, healthcare, district energy, and mission-critical facilities.

A bridge between the trades and engineering

Steven Brown is a Red Seal Refrigeration Journeyman with deep, hands-on expertise in chillers, heat pumps, cooling towers, hydronic systems, and building automation. Combined with a mechanical engineering education currently in progress, this gives Alkaline Air a rare ability to communicate fluently across trades and engineering teams — bridging mechanical performance and controls integration to anticipate problems and solve them at the source.

Over two decades, Steven has led commissioning, field review, and contract administration on some of BC's most complex capital projects: hospitals, universities, district energy plants, CL3 biocontainment labs, helium liquefiers, and data centre cooling infrastructure.

Red Seal Refrigeration Journeyman – 2010
Gas Fitter B Journeyman – 2010
Electrical Endorsement – 2010
Wiring & Controls Training – 2013
B.Sc. Mechanical Engineering – expected 2028
Programming: C++, Python
Experience

Career highlights

2010 – Present

Director & Building Mechanical/Commissioning Consultant, Alkaline Air Ltd.

  • Owner-operator providing mechanical field representation, commissioning oversight, and project leadership for clients including PHSA, Interplay Learning, Climate Smart, and Corpus Christi & St Mark's College.
  • Reviews construction document packages for constructability issues; attends site meetings and conducts field reviews, coordinating RFI responses between contractors and design teams.
  • Verifies sequences of operation against real-world system performance and writes building automation code to align control logic with actual system behaviour.
  • Developed RFP documentation producing vendor pricing within 5% variance across all bids, and identified $1.7M (4.7%) in savings on a $36M tender.
2023 – 2025

Commissioning Engineer, Johnson Barrow Solutions

  • Led field review and mechanical commissioning for major construction projects including Lions Gate Hospital and BC Housing.
  • Founded the company's Commissioning, Quality Control, and Quality Assurance division.
  • Supported project managers on scheduling, constructability, and seamless transition through commissioning and turnover.
2016 – 2023

Director of Commissioning / Senior Building Mechanical Specialist, TC Thermenex

  • Acted as owner representative on major institutional capital projects: UBC Life Sciences Teaching Laboratories, Langara College T Building, City of Coquitlam District Energy, St. Paul's Hospital, BC Women and Children's Hospital, and BC Cancer Research.
  • Reduced mechanical building energy consumption at two major hospital sites by up to 25%.
  • Directed development of standardized field review and commissioning processes and founded the company's system training program.
2012 – 2016

Refrigeration Technician, UBC Building Operations

  • Delivered field review, maintenance, and commissioning across UBC's 400+ building portfolio, including hospitals, research buildings, and post-secondary facilities.
  • Diagnosed and repaired complex mechanical systems, developing a reputation for solving problems others couldn't identify.

Let's discuss your project

Get direct access to two decades of mechanical commissioning and field review expertise.

Contact Steven