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The Minnesota Retiree Environmental Technical Assistance Program (RETAP) employs skilled, retired professionals to provide facility assessments to small businesses, institutions, and city and county governments in Minnesota. The no-cost, non-regulatory assessments include on-site visits from RETAP members to find ways to increase energy efficiency and water conservation, and reduce waste and operating costs. The MPCA provides funding and administrative oversight for the program. All small to mid-sized businesses, industries, and institutional facilities (public, private, and tribal) in Minnesota are eligible for Minnesota RETAP services.

Most RETAP members are retired engineers, scientists, managers, or other professional who have worked in Minnesota business, industry, or education and have 30 to 40 years of experience. They come from a wide variety of backgrounds and have received training in conducting assessments in the areas of pollution prevention, waste reduction, and energy conservation.

Your RETAP team will:

  • analyze your utility bills.
  • visit your facility.
  • send you a written report with high priority changes and estimated financial and environmental savings.

Recommendations may be simple behavior changes, maintenance improvements, or more complicated retrofits. You're under no obligation to implement the recommendations, but the average annual savings from RETAP recommendations implemented in 2017 was more than $6,000 per client.

Assessments

Organization receiving RETAP assessments will be asked to:

  • sign an agreement outlining the assessment's scope.
  • provide names and contact information for key representatives
  • provide utility bills from the past 12 months, including electricity, natural gas, LP gas, water, sewer, garbage collection, and recycling pickup.

The on-site visit includes a thorough walk-through of your facilities, looking at major systems (HVAC, lighting, building envelope, water use) and waste generation.

The RETAP team then prepares a report with specific recommendations for waste reduction, pollution prevention, energy conservation, and cost savings. In most cases, the report will include a benchmarking score that compares the facility to similar structures in this region of the country. A RETAP representative will follow up a few months later, to check in on implementing the recommendations and to answer any questions.

RETAP and compliance

Minnesota RETAP assessments are not meant to assist with permit and regulatory compliance. See Small business environmental assistance for help with compliance issues.

Apply to be a RETAP consultant

RETAP applicants may be retired engineers, scientists, managers, or other professionals from a wide range of technical and non-technical fields. You must be a self-starter and independent worker, and be comfortable working with computers.

Submit an application with your resume and two professional references to grants.pca@state.mn.us. Use that email address for questions about RETAP and the application process. We look forward to hearing from you!