“When I was graduating high school, and even when I was graduating college, I never felt like, 'I'm gonna become a window expert!’” Steve Sylvestre said. “But that’s where following my passions led me.”
A Minnesota native, Steve Sylvestre grew up in Saint Paul and never strayed far. After getting a head start taking some college courses during his senior year of high school, he attended the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities and graduated with a BS in chemistry.
During his time as a student, Sylvestre interned at 3M, where he contributed to the development and testing of fire protection products. After graduating, he remained at 3M in a contracted position working on solar panel encapsulants, in Sylvestre’s words, “basically the glue that holds the solar panel together.”
After eighteen months in that role, Sylvestre received a cold call from Cardinal Glass Industries. They wanted to offer him a full-time, permanent position as a research and development chemist — his introduction to the window industry.
Because simply fulfilling job duties and clocking out has never been Sylvestre’s thing, he became a founding member on the company’s Safety, Environmental, Ergonomics, and Security (SEES) Committee. After working with the committee to help the Cardinal Insulating Glass Technology Center achieve VPP OSHA status, the group turned its attention to sustainability.
“We wanted to be able to speak to sustainability to the same degree that we could with safety,” Sylvestre said. “And for my last couple of years there, I ended up being the site sustainability specialist in addition to my chemistry role.”
Sylvestre, who didn’t have a background in sustainability, jumped in to learn all he could. "I was basically just trying to sponge stuff up from peers,” he said. “I started following and connecting with experts on LinkedIn, chasing people down who I could learn from.”
It was on LinkedIn that Sylvestre came across CEE’s job posting for the position of high-performance windows initiative manager on the Wise Window Hub team. “It felt weirdly specific to my background and skill set,” he said. “I had the background in the glass industry, and an appetite and interest in efficiency and market transformation.”
Founded in 2023, Wise Window Hub is an initiative under Minnesota’s Efficient Technology Accelerator, a program funded by the state’s investor-owned utilities, administered by the Minnesota Department of Commerce - Division of Energy Resources (DER), and implemented by CEE. The program’s goal is to remove barriers and leverage opportunities to accelerate the adoption of energy efficient technology. The Wise Window Hub initiative empowers builders, contractors, and homeowners with the tools and knowledge needed to take advantage of the energy-saving opportunities that high-performance windows offer.
As the initiative managers for high-performance windows, Sylvestre manages the Wise Window Hub team. He engages with industry stakeholders, including manufacturers, utilities, and contractors, to develop and implement major market intervention initiatives.
“It was honestly a little bit scary to make this pivot to market transformation, because my background was in chemistry and engineering... like, very technical,” Sylvestre said. “My job with Wise Window Hub is extremely interpersonal. It’s relationship building. And I've absolutely loved it.”
So far, one of Sylvestre’s proudest accomplishments is the “golden carrot” manufacturer incentive that Wise Window Hub launched in 2025. A common strategy in market transformation, these incentives foster collaboration with manufacturers to develop and advance energy efficient products.
“Essentially, we're working with manufacturers to develop what we're calling cost-optimized triple-pane windows,” Sylvestre said.
Historically, triple-pane windows have been bundled with other costly premier features, resulting in a high price tag for homeowners. "We're working with the manufacturers to untangle those features to decrease the cost of triple-pane windows,” Sylvestre said.
Underpinning this project, and Wise Window Hub’s work in general, is the goal of making energy efficient home products more accessible to the public.
“Equity is kind of baked into what we're about as an organization, but also as a team,” Sylvestre said. "We won't be successful at market transformation if high-performance windows are only available in the Double Deluxe product lines, and that has historically been the case. And so, to be able to bring everyone along for the ride... that’s going to be mission critical to successfully transform the market."
Market transformation is hard work, so what propels Sylvestre forward through the more challenging moments? “Right from the start, the values orientation of CEE has been kind of life-giving,” he said. “I don't know if that is quite the right word, but that’s what I say when people ask me about what it is like to work at CEE. I get not only a physical paycheck, but like, an emotional or values paycheck too. And that means a lot to me. I think it matters a lot."
Steve is one of several experts at CEE that is helping to deliver results for Minnesota’s ETA, the statewide market transformation program that accelerates the deployment and reduces the cost of emerging and innovative efficient technologies. Beyond Minnesota, CEE bolsters market transformation for utilities and organizations throughout the Midwest by harnessing our core strengths in research, program implementation, and supply chain expertise.
Learn about Efficient Technology Accelerator (ETA)
