You may have seen this guy running around in his blue track suit, repping ACE in Biggest Loser: Energy videos. But starring in videos is just one part of Kevin Kailath’s dynamic role here at ACE as the Student Action Program Coordinator. We flagged Kev down to ask him a few questions. Check out the exclusive interview below!

How long have you been at ACE?

I’ve been working at ACE for about 5 months and loving my time here.

What was one of the first things that stood out about this team?

It’s such a close-knit team of very dedicated and passionate people.  Our goals are ambitious and people really rise to the challenge because they’re happy about what  they do.

What do you do?

After the ACE presentation students are really fired up and seeking ways to get involved in the climate movement. ACE Action Teams provide that opportunity and infrastructure for this. I run the overarching program of engagement for these teams that give them opportunities to attend leadership trainings, participate in carbon cutting competitions and get grants to take their efforts to the next level.

Can you tell me about the Biggest Loser: Energy competition?

Sure! The Biggest Loser: Energy competition has schools all across the nation turning off lights and electronics to reduce their energy consumption and compete for a $1,000 grant. It is incredibly unique because it’s highly numbers oriented. We can help students estimate how many pounds of CO2 they’ve reduced by turning off lights and electronics in their classrooms and consequently how many dollars they’ve saved their school in energy costs. I think students and teachers really like having that kind of tangible feedback.

What are you most looking forward to about this semester’s competition?

We are very connected to our students in the field and when we were crafting this new iteration of the competition, we paid very close attention to feedback from our educators and survey results from students and teachers. This has really allowed us to strengthen the competition and tailor it to the needs of all of these constituents. We’re taking a very holistic approach to how we are marketing Biggest Loser: Energy and engaging students with it, from brand new collateral materials, new video support materials, changes to the presentation and even down to giving students kilowatts to help them find watts on electronics.

What projects are you most excited about beyond BL?

The way I look at it, since ACE is such a small and quickly growing org, it allows us to be very nimble and creative. If I have good ideas or if one of our educators brings forth a creative idea, we can put our efforts into implementing it in a very short time.

What are you expecting from this year’s Biggest Loser: Energy competition vs. last years?

I think we’re going to see tremendous growth in participation levels for this competition. I also think that students and teachers will stay more engaged throughout the process because of the way we’ve streamlined it.

What do you tell your friends about when you get home?

We pay very close attention to what students and teachers want. I’ve been very privileged to be able to get out into the field and see presentations, conduct leadership trainings and work 1:1 with students.

In terms of feedback on Biggest Loser: Energy, given that the first time that we ran it was rather experimental, we made a lot of assumptions and took some risks. So it was very gratifying at the end of the competition to see how big of an impact it made in just 20 daysnand how much fun students had with it. It was a very validating and gratifying feeling. At the end of the competition we had students submit stories to us about their innovative approaches to build Biggest Loser: Energy awareness in their schools and get a leg up in the competition.