business backgrounder | industry
Starline Blazes a Green Trail
Kelly Kearsley
When Starline Luxury Coaches was forced
to build a new headquarters, the company took
the opportunity to build a green and energyefficient facility.
The parking lot of Starline Luxury Coach’s new
headquarters in Seattle is plumbed with power to
create plug-ins for the employees’ electric cars. No
one on staff drives an electric car — yet.
“But we want to be ready when they do,” said CEO
Gladys Gillis.
Gillis applied that same
sense of vision to the entire
at a glance
construction of Starline’s
facility. The result is a
green and energy efficient
In 2009, Starline Luxury Coaches
built a new headquarters in Seattle
building that earned the
using green building practices.
Seattle-based bus company
an AWB Environmental
The company catches 3,000 gallons
Excellence Award this year.
of rainwater in underground tanks
The company’s need for
and uses it to wash its buses.
a new building was unexA waste oil re-burner uses motor
pected. Starline found itself
oil from the buses to heat the
forced out of its prior locacompany’s shop. The waste oil
tion in 2008 after the City of
re-burner gives the old oil a new
Seattle notified the company
purpose and saves Starline on
Julie Wilson (left) and Gladys Gillis of Starline Luxury Coaches
that it wanted the property
with their 2011 AWB Environmental Excellence Awards.
heating costs.
Starline was on to expand its
dump, Gillis said.
The facility is made from recycled
steel, and the building is positioned
The timing was terrible. The local economy was starting to sputter and Starline’s revenues
to take advantage of the sun for
were dropping. In fact, 2009 was the first year company posted a decrease in revenue after
light and heat. All the appliances
10 years of growth.
and lighting are Energy Star rated.
“That was the year we had to spend money on a new building — no one was spending
money in 2009, but we didn’t have an alternative,” Gillis said.
The new location—on Martin Luther
She turned a bad situation into an opportunity to learn more about green building and
King Jr. Way South—is 15 minutes
explore ways to save energy and water, reuse materials and improve efficiency. Gillis has long
closer to the freeway. Multiplied by
had an interest in the topic — she studied industrial technology and energy sources in college.
1,200 bus trips per month, the small
“Hopefully it increases the value of the building and it might pay us back in the long
distance saves a lot of fuel and time.
run,” Gillis said. “But what drives us to do this is that we are passionate about doing the
right thing for the environment.”
48 association of washington business