Design West Engineering's Jeremy Richard and Brian Graham enjoyed networking with other land professionals at the Holiday Open House, held at Urban Land Institute Orange County/Inland Empire office in Irvine, Calif.

This is the time of year to celebrate the holidays and exchange ideas with industry peers over drinks and appetizers. On Dec. 19 Urban Land Institute Orange County/Inland Empire hosted a Holiday Open House at its Irvine, Calif. headquarters.

"Right now we're focusing on growing membership with young professionals and well as mid-career professionals," said Phyllis Alzamora, executive director of the ULI OC/IE chapter. "We're seeing how we can be relevant with another real estate cycle."

Alzamora said she likes the creativity that members bring to meetings along with the exchange of ideas. Those mid-career professionals have a lot of responsibilities, both professionally and personally. They can share how they can handle that load and still contribute to their communities.

ULI gathers a group of diverse professionals such as architects, lawyers, developers, landscape architects, engineers, land planners, market researchers, finance experts and government officials.

A couple of those professionals came from Design West Engineering, in San Bernardino, Calif. Commissioning agent Brian Graham helped to start the commissioning division six months ago.

"My job is to make sure the new building are Title 24 compliant, which is the building code for California," said Graham. "We help the owners ensure that their buildings have thermal comfort."

Jeremy Richard is a business development director who is looking at which markets to focus on: health care, residential, educational, industrial. He said there's lots of opportunity out there to be competitive and profitable.

"Most of the new codes are close to being LEED compliant," said Richard. "The energy code update is pushing for solar to be in all new residences in California by 2020. I see in the code where they want the homes to be at Net Zero, which means they produce as much electricity as they consume."