Obama will join the President at the National Park Service at the National Park Foundation's Annual National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony held on the Ellipse at 5:00 p.m. eastern.
About once every month, the group schedules a large "operation" in which dozens of volunteers descend upon a local neighborhood to do massive group service, such as yard cleanup or a sweeping installation of energy-efficient lighting.
Until recently, building automation, lighting controls, fire safety and other base building systems were designed and deployed to support a single building service and operated independently on proprietary network and cables.