Justin Phil - NAC President's Message 2021-2022

It is an honour to serve as the ASHRAE Northern Alberta chapter president for the 2021-2022 year. I am looking forward to seeing our membership in person again this year after a year of online meetings. The Northern Alberta chapter board is hard at work planning events for this year.

 

I want to thank everyone who volunteered to be part of the board this year. We filled every chair position and nearly every chair has a few volunteers to help as well. It is great to see the enthusiasm and involvement from our membership year after year, we truly have one of the most passionate communities. If you would like to get involved, please reach out, we are more than happy to have you on board.

 

While we aren't quite back to normal yet, we will continue to host events, build our membership, provide professional development opportunities, support ASHRAE research, recognize the great work our membership does, and share our knowledge with the community. Hope to see you at some of our events this year.

Justin Phil

"Day on the Hill"

To all ASHRAE members,

 
Our friends at HRAI have scheduled a (virtual) “Day on the Hill” for May 4th, 2021.  HRAI is setting up meetings with MPs across the nation, as well as Ministers, Parliamentary Assistants, Committee Chairs and senior bureaucrats.  HRAI will also be preparing some key messaging on behalf of the industry and will do a preparatory message briefing in advance of the actual day of meetings.

 

ASHRAE has been invited to participate in this process so we’re reaching out to identify members who might be interested in participating on our behalf.

 

Doing this virtually has some disadvantages, but the major upside of this format is that it will allow us collectively to involve many more of our members -- from the comfort of their own homes and offices. HRAI will try to match up constituents with their local MPs wherever possible. Please note that, depending on the meetings we get, we may not need every member who volunteers, but we want to be prepared!

 

Please indicate your willingness by filling in this FORM: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdQPsJJMypZsz1xY28RC-T46UtFrk797MgSASWLsG-v-XNcXQ/viewform

2019-2020 Chapter Event Summary

September Lunch Meeting

The first meeting of the 2019-2020 season took place on Wednesday, September 18. The lunch meeting was held at the Matrix Hotel with guest speaker Steven Sookdeo from Footprint. Steven presented on the impacts to building design of the upcoming enforcement of the National Energy Code for Buildings (NECB) 2017.

Diversity in ASHRAE – Paint Night

The diversity in ASHRAE NAC chair hosted a Paint Night on Tuesday, October 15 at Fionn MacCool’s. Many a masterpiece were painted by the members and guests who joined.

Past Presidents Night

October’s dinner meeting, held on Wednesday, October 30, at the University of Alberta Faculty Club, was Past Presidents Night. Special guest Darryl Boyce, ASHRAE Society President, was in attendance and spoke on the topic of Building for People and Performance Achieving Operational Excellence – his theme as president for the year. Jason Smith from Intellihot also presented on the topic of tankless water heater design. In all, 16 past presidents of the ASHRAE NAC chapter attended the event.

November Lunch Meeting

November’s chapter event was a lunch meeting held at the Common on Wednesday, November 20. Chris Dziedzic from Price Industries was the featured speaker presenting on acoustical considerations for buildings.

Christmas Lunch Meeting

December’s meeting was the annual Christmas Luncheon held on Friday, December 20 at the Delta Hotel South. The event was well attended and included a prize draw in support of the Edmonton Christmas Bureau. Thanks to the generosity of members who donated the prizes at all those in attendance who bought tickets, the chapter was able to donate $6670 To the Edmonton Christmas Bureau.

Diversity in ASHRAE – Professional Development

The diversity in ASHRAE NAC chair hosted a professional development session on Thursday, January 9, 2020 at the Matrix Hotel. The guest speaker was Brittany Mendiuk from the Technical Services Branch at Alberta Infrastructure whom spoke on the topic of innovative ways to utilize BIM models and the digital files that are delivered to Alberta Infrastructure following the handover of a project.

Student Night

The first meeting of 2020 was Student Night held at MKT on Wednesday, January 22. The guest speaker for the evening was Brian Kammers from Desert Aire who presented on natatorium design and best practices.

February Lunch Meeting

February’s chapter event was a lunch meeting held at the Louisiana Purchase on Wednesday, February 19. Martin Gravel with Camfil Canada presented on Air and Gas phase filtration guidelines for the cannabis industry-from, clean room and ISO space selections, MERV rating recommendations, general commercial efficiency options and air change recommendations for design. Unfortunately this would be the last in person event of the season.

COVID-19 Pandemic

On March 5 the first presumptive case of COVID-19 was reported in Alberta. This would lead to massive changes to society over the next few months and beyond. As a result of the spread of COVID -19 through the province and the issuance of health orders, all non-essential businesses were closed and large gatherings were prohibited. This resulted in the offices of companies in our industry being closed with people having to work remotely from home. In person meetings were replaced with video conferences; construction activities were still allowed to continue but with additional health and safety measures in place to limit the spread of COVID-19.

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic a number of chapter events were forced to be cancelled, including the March dinner meeting, the annual John Ross curling bonspiel, the April dinner meeting, and the annual golf tournament. Our chapter was also to host the Chapters Regional Conference at the end of April into early May – this event also had to be cancelled.

From a chapter operational standpoint, chapter board meetings were required to be conducted via videoconference instead of in person.

Spring Update

With everyone adjusting to the “new normal” brought on by the COVID pandemic, the chapter board decided to host an online video conference to provide an update on the chapter to its membership. The video meeting was held on Monday, May 21 and was well attended by chapter members.

June Meeting

The final event of the 2019-2020 season was held on Wednesday, June 17. The event was held via video conference and included Robert Peters with Rinnai Canada. Rob presented on common venting design for multi-family projects for domestic hot water systems.

 

 

Lyle Van Wieren - NAC President's Message 2020-2021

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I am very excited to serve as ASHRAE NAC chapter president for 2020-2021. As usual we have a great group of volunteers and have almost all of our committee chairs filled. I encourage you to reach out to any of our Board of Governors or chairs to see how you can get further involved in ASHRAE as well.

 This year is going to be a great learning experience for everyone involved, as a majority of our usual events are going to look quite a bite different. Being the year of the pandemic all of our events for the foreseeable future are virtual, even our Board of Governors meetings have moved from the rowdy pub atmosphere to staring into our webcams. We still expect to get great attendance from our dedicated members and to keep everyone engaged with some excellent technical presentations, but let’s do our part to stop the spread so we can get back to our normal events in the new year.

Unfortunately some of our best fundraiser and networking events are in jeopardy (Christmas luncheon, curling bonspiel, and golf tournament) so I am formally requesting that you do your best to continue to support the Chapter in any way you can. With COVID and other infectious diseases top of mind, research dollars are as critical as ever. The support of our members has been phenomenal throughout all of my years in ASHRAE and I expect this great group of members to continue to stay engaged.

Lyle Van Wieren

Peter Chan - Government Affairs Chair 2019-2020

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As a professional engineer and an ASHRAE member for over 20 years, it is an honour to be able to serve as the Board of Governors and Government Affairs Chair for NAC. My goal as Government Affairs Chairs is to bring awareness of ASHRAE as a whole and the Design and Operational, Standards and Guidelines, that ASHRAE writes and publishes in order to make this world a better place to live, both indoors and outdoors.

In order to achieve my goal, I will be reaching out to different Municipal, City, Provincial Officials and introduce who I am and what I represent.

Chad Von Hagen - Electronic Communications Chair 2017-2018 / 2018-2019 / 2019-2020

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It has been really exciting to be part of such a passionate Board team these past two years.  My current position is the NAC Electronic Communications Chair, although I have spent the majority of my time trying to learn all of the new ASHRAE acronyms.

I am also fairly new Edmontonian, having transferred up from Calgary with my wife and three girls.  I currently work in HVAC Technical Sales, which has given me the opportunity to meet lots of new people. 

We are truly lucky to have such an engaged HVAC community in Northern Alberta.

Mark Henry - Treasurer 2019-2020

I am happy to be the ASHRAE Northern Alberta Chapter Treasurer this year, moving on from Secretary last year. I will be looking after the chapter’s finances and helping the new Secretary transition to that position, and helping out at meetings as needed.

I’ve been on the board for six years now. My previous positions have been Secretary, Historian and YEA/SA co-chair.

When not helping out with ASHRAE, I sell HVAC equipment.

In my spare time, I like to keep active, follow the sporting and business worlds and spend time with my wife.