As we mentioned yesterday, in honor of the first anniversary of DHS’ Efficiency Review this week, we’re going to spotlight a few of the outstanding DHS employees making a big difference in changing the way we do business here at DHS.

Sometimes, it’s the simplest changes that make a big difference.

U.S. Coast Guard Lieutenant Ryan Murphy recently came up with one such idea – an ingeniously simple energy-saving efficiency. Ryan realized that, by installing timers on vending machines to automatically turn them off at night when no one is using them, his base, Coast Guard Base Support Unit Honolulu, might lower its utility bills.

Ryan got the idea after examining sales records for each vending machine on the base and measuring their energy consumption over time. He found that several vending machines were consuming a great deal of power but had very low sales revenue. He also realized that the machines were not being used at night.

As a result, Ryan removed some machines from service, relocated others, and, using seed money from the Coast Guard’s Facility Energy Efficiency Funds, outfitted all remaining machines with inexpensive occupancy sensors that allow the machines to power down after hours. Additionally, because the machines would not be operating at night, he removed the lighting systems from the remaining machines, further reducing their daily energy consumption.

Sure enough, Murphy’s base now expects to lower its utility bills by $6,000 a year as a result of this clever innovation.

Sensible and easy-to-implement, Ryan’s efficiency is a great example of the many creative ways DHS employees are saving time and resources across the Department.