Hello everyone!

Our first La Crosse ASHRAE meeting of the year will be Wednesday, October 20^th from 12PM-1PM CDT. It will be held on GoToWebinar.

The presenter for this meeting is Erin McConahey, a Distinguished Lecturer who will be speaking about Material Concerns in HVAC Equipment.

Erin McConahey is a Principal in Mechanical Engineering with Arup, an employee-owned global engineering, advisory and planning consulting firm. During her 26 years with Arup, she has worked internationally and now leads multidisciplinary design teams in Los Angeles on a wide variety of project types.

Erin’s passion for finding integrated design solutions through a collaborative design process began with a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Structural Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. As she rose in leadership within her firm, she served on Arup’s global Trustee Board, was named an Arup Fellow for her technical excellence, spearheaded the Americas Region Diversity and Inclusion Initiative, and served on the leadership teams for a number of training programs. These service opportunities, coupled with growing concern over climate change, led her to a second Master’s degree in Ethical Leadership from Claremont Lincoln University.

Erin is a Professional Engineer in California and Colorado, a LEED accredited professional (BD+C specialty), an ASHRAE accredited High Performance Building Design Professional, and a Fellow of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-conditioning Engineers. She is co-author of the ASHRAE Natural Ventilation Design Guide and writes semi-annually for the Engineer’s Notebook column in ASHRAE Journal. In the latter capacity, she has emphasized the link between mechanical engineers’ “skills for this decade” to the wider global trends around the carbon economy, healthy materials, and sustainable development.

Please join us for this exciting topic!

Our chapter’s history display for the 2021 CRC is now available digitally on this very website! Click on “History” in the header at the top of this page to check out a listing of our historical archives or navigate to ashraelacrosse.org/history.

The first file at the top is our 2021 display. Feel free to browse our other documents, with histories of local companies and people from the chapter’s past and present. 

Joint Societies Meeting (ASHRAE La Crosse Chapter, ASME, IEEE Coulee Subsection)

Embodied Carbon: The New Challenge

For the past 20+ years, the MEP industry was focused on energy reductions, but recently there has been a shift to minimizing operational carbon through strategies related to energy efficiency, utility source selection, and integration of renewable energy. Having achieved good progress in reducing operational carbon, our focus is now moving to the embodied and life cycle carbon associated with the materials and systems found in buildings. Simply put, embodied carbon looks at the carbon impacts associated with extracting, manufacturing, and transporting materials to the jobsite, in addition to manufacturing and transportation, includes impacts related to use, end of life.  While life cycle analysis (LCA) accounts for impacts over the full lifecycle of a material, which includes the operating carbon.

Program Details

Date:  Wednesday April 21st, 2021 12PM-1PM CDT

Place: GoToWebinar

Link to register: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/4684341061325499662

About the Presenter

Luke is a member of the newly minted ASHRAE Carbon Task Force; one of the 3 moderators for the Carbon Leadership Forum MEP Embodied Carbon Community; a co-author of the MEP equipment embodied carbon to manufacturers; Incoming Chair of ASHRAE Environmental Health Committee; a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Fellow; He is also a Centennial Fellow from The Pennsylvania State University Architectural Engineering Department; Board of Directors for USGBC (United State Green Building Council), Illinois; Past Chair of the ASHRAE (American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning) Committee on “Tall Buildings”; Chairman of the Building Pressure Committee, Chicago Committee on High Rise Buildings; Sustainable Committee with Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat; Part Time Professor at IIT;  Industry Advisor for IN2 Start Up program for National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Luke Leung is a Director of the Sustainability Engineering Studio for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP.  His work includes Burj Khalifa, the world’s current tallest man-made structure; Multiple times “Excellence in Engineering” award from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE);  2 awards from National Institute of Building Sciences, among others.  Selected projects also include Pertamina Tower (Net Zero Supertall), General Motors Global Headquarters, Roche Diagnostic in Indianapolis, Beijing Finance Street, Embassy of Ottawa in Canada, Embassy in Beijing, Lakeside – 55 million sqft low energy development, a LEED Platinum building with the first large scale horizontal wind turbine in the city of Chicago;  etc., and has served as a member of the editorial team for the CTBUH guide Natural Ventilation in High-Rise Office Buildings, ASHRAE “Design Guide for Tall, Supertall, Megatall Building Systems”, among other publications.

The Cold Chain: refrigeration, refrigerants, sustainability, and hockey, ed. note: including a VP from the National Hockey League!.

ASHRAE La Crosse Webinar
Where: Go To Meeting

Link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/5128794446894642446
Speakers: Chuck Allgood & Omar Mitchell
When: 3/17/21 12PM-1PM CST

Cost: Free

Dr. Charles (Chuck) Allgood is currently Technology Leader – Refrigerants, with Chemours, Wilmington, Delaware. He holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Delaware. Chuck has held a variety of research, technical service, and market development assignments during his 30 years in the refrigerants industry. He currently leads technical support, training, and applications development for the Opteon™ and Freon™ refrigerants and is a frequent speaker at many HVACR industry events.

Omar Mitchell – VP of Sustainable Growth and Infrastructure, National Hockey League

Email: Charles.c.allgood-1@chemours.com, omitchell@nhl.com

ASHRAE La Crosse Webinar

Where: Go To Meeting

Link: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/9193777991241495566

Speaker: Julia Keen

When: 2/18/21 12PM-1PM CST

Cost: Free

Julia Keen will be speaking about how ASHRAE has shaped the HVAC-R industry in the past and how its impacts will continue to matter in the future. 

Julia Keen’s biography:

Julia Keen is a Professor of Architectural Engineering and Construction Science at Kansas State University holding the Bob and Betty Tointon Engineering endowed chair. She also owns her own consulting company, Keen Designs, PA. Her specific areas of interest include HVAC design, energy codes, high performance design, HVAC education, and the advancement of women in the building design and construction industry.

Julia Keen received her Bachelor’s Degree in Architectural Engineering from Kansas State University. Upon graduation, she worked as a Mechanical/Electrical Project Engineer in Waterloo, Iowa. In this capacity she was responsible for the design of building systems from initial planning stages through final project inspection and completion. In July 2003, Julia accepted a faculty position with K-State in the Architectural Engineering and Construction Science Department. She completed her Master’s degree in Architectural Engineering (2005) and her Doctorate (2010) in Education both from K-State. She is a Licensed Mechanical Professional Engineer in Kansas and Iowa and holds two ASHRAE Certifications – High-Performance Building Design Professional (HBDP) and Building Energy Audit Professional (BEAP).

In addition to her 9-month faculty appointment at K-State, Julia has the opportunity to stay current with the HVAC industry in a consulting capacity. Her consulting endeavors include performing as HVAC professional education consultant, engineering design, plan check and quality review, and acting as an owner’s representative in facility planning and project implementation.

Julia became involved in ASHRAE as a student member of the Kansas State University student branch. She has acted as the faculty advisor to this branch since 2003 during which time the chapter has routinely attended the ASHRAE winter meetings and the competition team that she has coached has finished first in the ASHRAE Design Competition six times.

Through the years, Julia has held several chapter positions including President of the Cedar Valley Chapter. She has also been involved in many Society level committees including: Finance, Publishing and Education Council, Planning, Publications, Conferences and Expositions, and Certification as well as chaired TC6.1-Hydronic and Steam Equipment and Systems. Julia served in the elected positions on the ASHRAE Society Board of Directors as Vice President (2017 – 2019) and Director-at-Large (2013 – 2016). As a DAL and VP she served as Ex Officio/Coordinating Officer to the Refrigeration, Society Rules, and Standards Committees and was a voting member of Tech Council. Her service to the organization was recognized in 2010 when she was given the Distinguished Service Award. Julia continues to promote her passion of HVAC education through the HVAC Essentials Course she co-developed and delivers for ASHRAE around the world. She was promoted to the grade of ASHRAE Fellow in 2016 and was presented with the 2018 ASHRAE E. K. Campbell Teaching Award.

Email: jkeen at ksu dot edu