Message from DRC March 2018

Senior Moments

We are at the half way mark for this ASHRAE year and it certainly has been a very eventful one. Again, I want to thank everyone who has volunteered their time to create a better ASHRAE either for your chapter, your region or for society. If you aren’t active, please become an active participant. We can only get better if everyone who is a member, associate member or student member volunteers their time and resources to making our organization more meaningful to all of our members.

As I have stated in my last message to you, I will address the Region through this Regional Website to give you, the members, updated Society, Regional and Chapter information so that you are more informed about the goings on with ASHRAE.

WINTER MEETING UPDATES

The society held their winter meeting in Chicago, Illinois from January 19th to January 24th and here are the highlights:AHR Expo was the largest show yet-over 530K sq. ft. of space.WIA held a breakfast during the winter conferenceThe ASHRAE website will launch February 14, 2018. Improvements include an upgrade to the infrastructure, better search functionality and launching a mobile and tablet version.The Leadership Academy has 65 participants as of this writing and there are still openings will be in Atlanta in May. There was an allotment for this region and we have filled that but, since not all regions have used their, there are still openings. We have 11 participants so far and I would love to see all 15 chapters have at least one participant.

REGIONAL HONORS & AWARDS

Some of our Region VIII members received awards during the Plenary Session at the Winter meeting. Many Kudos and thanks from our Region for all that they have done for ASHRAE:

ASHRAE Technical Paper Award
Michael Fullerton, P.E., HFDP, Adam M. McElderry, Andrew Jester, Bernhard TME, Little Rock, Arkansas, first place, Health Care Facilities Existing Building Commissioning category, Pineville Enterprise Energy Management Phase 1, Charlotte, N.C. The building is owned by Carolinas Healthcare System.
Bobby Vermillion Pinnacle Award
Ken Shifflett-Houston Chapter

REGIONAL NEWS

Research Promotion is at $148K through January (Doesn't include the $12K for scholarship endowment from central Oklahoma)
This is $30K ahead of where we were last year at this time.
Central Oklahoma is setting up a 4 year scholarship endowment to get to $30,000
Justin Ivey, President Elect from Shreveport Chapter was the awarded candidate to spend time shadowing me and Randy Schrecengost as the Region’s LeaDR in Chicago
38 Students from Arkansas State, Arkansas State Jonesboro, University of Arkansas @ Little Rock, Texas A & M, University of Texas @ Tyler, University of Texas, and University of Oklahoma attended the Winter meeting and were treated to some beer and pizza with Chris Ahne. Kudos to the chapter and Chris for having a great turnout of students.
Two Region VIII universities have received a total of five (5) ASHRAE research grants for a total of $25,000.
Dr. Cai at Oklahoma University received $5,000 for "A closed-loop test bed for air-conditioning and heat pump equipment."
Dr. Bach and Dr. Bradshaw from Oklahoma State University have received a combine 4 ASHRAE grants for $20,000.
President Elect Training was held in Dallas on February 9 & 10th. 14 of the region’s 15 chapter president elects were present.
Getting handbooks for our Mexico chapters has always been difficult because the mail is no always reliable so Pub Ed Council has made it official with approval of the Board of Governors to automatically send out handbook via Federal Express. This should eliminate any issues with receiving these books in the future

CHAPTER HIGHLIGHTS

Members Council established the University of Central Oklahoma (UCO) Student Branch for the Central Oklahoma Chapter
A senior design project team from Oklahoma State University was selected to showcase their project at the ASHRAE meeting in Chicago. The team was tasked with developing a learning environment which would enable the instruction of the behavior of compressors to undergraduate students at OSU. The project was partially funded by an ASHRAE undergraduate project grant