Michael O'keefe is an engineer with 13 years of professional experience and a deep background in building and automating engineering software and modeling tools from Denver. Currently Chief Engineer at Big Ladder Software, he generates technical documentation, authors engineering software like Elements, and supports open-source workflows. He is an active contributor to the widely used EnergyPlus whole-building energy simulation project, improving CMake build processes and expanding the C API to enhance reliability and error handling. With a prior decade at NREL designing simulations for electric and hybrid vehicle systems and founding ImagineMade to deliver modeling and simulation consulting, he blends hands-on systems engineering with tooling and automation expertise. Equally comfortable in code, documentation, and lab hardware, he brings a practical focus on reproducible workflows and preventing resource- and I/O-related failures.
13 years of coding experience
16 years of employment as a software developer
Master of Science (MS) Mechanical Engineering, Master of Science (MS) Mechanical Engineering at University of Washington
Bachelor of Science (BS) Mechanical Engineering, Bachelor of Science (BS) Mechanical Engineering at Northern Arizona University
EnergyPlus™ is a whole building energy simulation program that engineers, architects, and researchers use to model both energy consumption and water use in buildings.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Automation Engineer
Contributions:280 commits, 15 PRs, 22 pushes in 6 years 2 months
Contributions summary:Michael primarily contributed to the EnergyPlus project by modifying build and installation scripts (CMake files) and adding features and fixes to the C API. They focused on improving the build process, integrating documentation, and expanding the API's capabilities. The contributions included adding new API calls, enhancing error handling, and preventing resource leaks within the library. Additionally, the user made adjustments to prevent issues with standard input, standard output, and standard error streams.
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