MORE THAN BRICKS AND MORTAR

Julie Brandt was just four when her father’s work took the family from Illinois to Japan. She only lived there a few years, but those few years were enough to instill in her a deep curiosity about the world. And when she began to make her own way in the world, she set her sights beyond the immediate horizon.

Named as President of Johnson Controls’ Building Solutions North America (BSNA) in 2023, Brandt earned an MBA and a bachelor’s degree in international business and marketing from Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. As soon as she had her sheepskin degree in hand, she set about looking for a job that would take her far from the heartland. As luck would have it, the international business operations team for Otis Elevator Company was based in Bloomington. She interviewed there for a sales leader role in Asia and got the job. Brandt fell hard for construction and building systems and has operated successfully in that arena ever since. “The whole idea of developing skylines and the role that the parts and pieces play in getting these buildings off the ground has been really exciting for me.”

Johnson Controls BSNA is a $10 billion business with 27,000 employees focused on creating smart, healthy, and more sustainable buildings ranging from schools to office complexes, arenas to hospitals. “We spend nearly 90 percent of our time indoors, and buildings produce 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Understanding those statistics, our focus is on creating smart buildings that generate better environments,” she notes. “We do this through our OpenBlue digital platform—a gateway to better understanding a building’s overall health and operations. We supply the HVAC, the fire systems, and the security systems and connect those assets together to run a building at optimal efficiency. It’s rewarding to experience how the smart building evolution can have a significant impact on climate change as well as support today’s demands for healthy and safe environments.”

“For example,” says Brandt, “at a school, nothing is more important than the safety of the students, teachers, and staff. Connected, smart security systems can help alleviate this heavy burden with technologies such as remote video monitoring, active shooter detection, and smart sensors that help provide early notification of incidents with precise location insights for prompt intervention. Or at a hospital, a smart building means clinicians spend less time on administrative tasks and can focus on patients. This is especially important as the healthcare industry faces an unprecedented staffing shortage.”

While Johnson Controls is in 90 percent of the world’s most iconic buildings, from the Empire State Building to Willis Tower (as well as the Powerhouse Brattørkaia in Norway, which produces more energy than it uses making it the most energy-positive building in the northern hemisphere), many of its clients are community cornerstones like schools, universities, and hospitals. The company is very much about communities, and not only in a nuts and bolts kind of way. The Johnson Controls Foundation provides approximately $7 million annually to support a variety of nonprofit organizations, including United Way and the American Red Cross Annual Disaster Giving Program. For Brandt, a sense of community is what drew her back to Chicago. “We’d been away for years, living in Hong Kong and decided we wanted to raise our kids in the Midwest,” she shares. “And we found this little slice of heaven called Winnetka, where the people are worldly and interesting, but very grounded.”

Brandt, her husband, commodities trader Tim Lange, and their two teenage daughters have settled in nicely since she began her position at Johnson Controls this past April. Ensconced on Sheridan Road, the family loves the easy access to the city and as big sailors, couldn’t be happier being so close to the lake. Although Brandt’s work keeps her tethered to the Johnson Controls headquarters in Glendale, Wisconsin, she still manages to get away every year with a tight group of friends. Last year they visited Jordan, Cuba the year before. Clearly, a return to her Midwestern roots has not dampened the curiosity that has served Brandt so well.