Steve Sturgeon

Dear East TN ASHRAE Members and Friends,

Our chapter mourns the passing of Steve Sturgeon, P.E. Steve was our 1994-95 chapter president and was our CRC Chair or Co-Chair on three occasions - 1991, 2002, and 2012. Each time, he provided leadership that resulted in an event that brought great acclaim from our regional officers and attendees. Steve worked on numerous committees over the years, including Research Promotion and Golf Tournament.

Steve shared a close friendship with the late Walter Law, and they each served as chapter president on consecutive years, making for memorable board meetings. Their bonding trait was continuous disagreement, usually fostered by a greater desire to debate an issue rather than solve it. Nevertheless, our chapter grew and prospered those two years in a way that has yet to be duplicated. Steve and Walter were among the first participants of the ASHRAE Region VII planning meetings.

His career included over 40 years of experience in both engineering design and equipment sales. As a professional engineer, his early design work included leading projects in fields from education to aerospace. One highlight was participating in the 777 aircraft facility development program for Boeing Commercial Airplane in Seattle. His engineering experience helped him excel in sales, especially with industrial clients. Steve was always known for his thoroughness and commitment to the customer.

The family will receive friends from 5:00 to 6:00 PM on Thursday, April 6, 2023 at Berry Highland Memorial, 5315 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37919. A memorial service will follow at 6:00 PM.

2022 PAST PRESIDENTS DINNER & CHRISTMAS PARTY

2022 East TN ASHRAE Past President’s Christmas Party:

The East TN chapter of ASHRAE hosted its annual Past President’s Christmas Party on Thursday night December 15th, 2022 at The Square Room in Downtown Knoxville. The event was well attended by many of the local chapter members including a large majority of the Board of Governors. The night was filled with excitement through numerous events including a silent auction for RP fundraising and a highly intense round of Casino game play! A big Thank You for all those who participated, especially the companies and individuals who donated items for the silent auction. We were able to raise and additional $350 for Research Promotion that will go towards our annual goal. We look forward to a healthy and successful 2023. See you next year!

STUDENT - INDUSTRY HVAC NETWORKING EVENT

On October 5th, the ASHRAE East Tennessee Chapter hosted the “ASHRAE East Tennessee Student-Industry Networking Event” for students at The University of Tennessee.

The goal of the evening was to help students learn about the HVAC industry in East Tennessee and rub shoulders with engineers, researchers, sales engineers, and others who work within the HVAC industry.

A wide range of speakers gave short talks about their day-to-day work in the HVAC industry to help students understand the vast range of opportunities available to UT Engineering graduates in the HVAC industry.

The event was well attended, and we plan to keep the momentum going with future events on the UT campus. Please keep an eye out for 2023 version of the event – we need volunteer speakers!

Thank you to all our speakers and visitors – we are happy to have the most generous chapter members in all of ASHRAE!

2022 EAST TN ASHRAE KICK-OFF DINNER

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We will be having our 2022-23 chapter year kickoff dinner meeting at Calhoun’s On The River on Thursday, September 22, 2022 at 6:00 PM. This meeting is open to all ASHRAE members and potential members! We are looking forward to a pleasant evening on the river! We hope to see you there!

Please register for the event by clicking this link: REGISTER HERE

Please send any and all questions/discussion topics of interest to Zach Rose at zrose@bce1946.com

INAUGURAL CORNHOLE TOURNAMENT ~ BENEFITING RESEARCH PROMOTION

Please RSVP to Blake Forsythe (bforsythe@hobbsassociates.com) to save your spot! Prepayment can be made at this time. Cash, Card and Check payments are also accepted at check in.

#FEEDTHE ROOTS

REGISTER TODAY!!!

REGISTER TODAY!!!

STUDENT - INDUSTRY / HVAC NETWORKING EVENT

On March 9, the ASHRAE East Tennessee Chapter hosted the “ASHRAE East Tennessee Student-Industry Networking Event” for students at The University of Tennessee.

The goal of the evening was to help students learn about the HVAC industry in East Tennessee and rub shoulders with engineers, researchers, sales engineers, and others who work within the HVAC industry.

A wide range of speakers gave short talks about their day-to-day work in the HVAC industry to help students understand the vast range of opportunities available to UT Engineering graduates in the HVAC industry.

The event was well attended, and we plan to keep the momentum going with future events on the UT campus. Please keep an eye out for the fall semester version of the event – we need volunteer speakers!

Thank you to all our speakers and visitors – we are happy to have the most generous chapter members in all of ASHRAE!

March Chapter Meeting ~ DL Mark Fly~ "Inside The Box Fan Characteristics & Application"

The East TN Chapter of ASHRAE met last week on March 23rd for our monthly chapter meeting, highlighting a very technically informative presentation by ASHRAE Fellow and Distinguished Lecturer, Mr. Mark W. Fly. While enjoying a nice lunch at Rothchild’s Catering on Kingston Pike, we had a wonderful time socializing with many of our members from diverse aspects of the HVAC&R industry. We also had the pleasure of hosting two UTK student members. Mr. Fly gave his presentation titled “Inside the Box – Fan Characteristics and Application”, which dove into the basics of the different types of fan types and how to best use them for our everyday design applications.

We will be hosting our next monthly chapter meeting on April 20th at Rothchild’s Catering. This meeting will be highlighting the UTK Senior Design Team, in which our chapter has sponsored as the ETN ASHRAE Capstone Project, led by Dr. William Miller and his group of senior engineering students. We would love to see each and every chapter member so please mark this date down on your calendars!

 #FEEDTHEROOTS

EAST TN YEA GOES TO THE BALL PARK

On Tuesday, March 23rd the YEA members of the ASHRAE East Tennessee chapter got together for the 1st event of the calendar year. We first gathered at Fieldhouse Social for a discussion with Mark Fly, on how failure can lead to success. It was great to hear some examples of how past failures have led to some great success stories in a variety of industries. Mark had some great examples! We then made our way over to the UT baseball team where they took on Butler. Tennessee led the way from the start and ultimately winning 13-3, which made for a fun end to the evening!

We are always looking for fun creative outings for our YEA group…. If you have ideas for our next outing please reach out to Andrew Bosse @ andrew.bosse@tranetechnologies.com . #FEEDTHEROOTS

Message from Electronic Communications Committee

It is a new world now: social distancing, mask-wearing, and avoiding crowds. Zoom, Teams, and GoTo are now a regular part of our vocabulary! Hopefully, our chapter members are staying productive, despite the pandemic measures that caused the last few meetings of the 2019-2020 ASHRAE year to be cancelled. At the time, there was not a lot of choice in the matter, but in our off-season, the Electronic Communications Committee (ECC) has worked to ensure that the 2020-2021 ASHRAE year can proceed with some sense of service to our membership.

The ECC has met numerous times this summer and is now prepared to inform the Chapter of conceptual plans for the near future. Our meetings will be virtual to start the year. However, we well-understand that a great benefit of our monthly meetings is the social aspect. We will monitor progress with the pandemic and as distancing policies allow, in-person meetings will be considered. This may be a gradual change and several options have been discussed when this becomes possible. We understand that all individuals may see this from different perspectives and are considering options that will accommodate both in-person and virtual meetings.

Our chapter is in the process of migrating our e-mail list over to our web host (SquareSpace). If you are on our list, this will (hopefully) be the last e-mail that you will receive from Matt Price or Anne Jacoby. We very much appreciate the effort that they have made for several years, and the support that Hobbs and Associates has given to them.

In the next few days, perhaps a week, the e-mail list will be migrated over to SquareSpace, and our new Chapter President, Jeff Gibson will offer us our first message on the new service. Subsequently, we will communicate regarding meetings and the like from time to time. We promise to limit the quantity of mailings. However, initially we will be communicating often to explain how the Chapter will function this Fall. If you receive this e-mail, then you are automatically entered into our new system. Going forward, we will have some additional flexibility with our list, including opt-in and opt-out opportunities. We are learning as we go, so please be patient! If you are not on our e-mail list and would like to be, then an opportunity will soon be provided for sign-up.

We have also recommitted to frequent updates of our website. So, please check it out often! Jared Murrell is our new webmaster and will be providing updates to it. Meeting information will appear soon, so plan to participate!

A Sad Note from Our Chapter President

From our Chapter President, Chuck Biggs:

We are sad to publish that our chapter member, friend, and colleague Walter Law passed away yesterday, December 10, 2019 after a long battle with cancer. Walter was a loving and dedicated husband, father and grandfather and was an active member of his church. He was also a well-respected engineer in our community and worked on many prestigious projects in the Knoxville area.

Walters’ service and dedication to ASHRAE was evidenced by his long list of leadership roles in the local chapter, the region and nationally. At the most recent summer ASHRAE national meeting, Walter was awarded the Distinguished Service Award. This is a national award that recognizes ASHRAE members who have served the Society faithfully and with distinction on committees or have otherwise given freely of their time and talent on behalf of the Society. Walter did all of those things and truly loved ASHRAE.

Walter was passionate about his work and it was a pleasure to get to work with him on many projects. Some of my favorite memories of Walter involve ASHRAE as we had many good times and discussions at the ASHRAE annual meetings and CRC’s. I will be forever thankful for having known Walter and will deeply miss him. Below is a link to his obituary. There is a memorial service planned for Thursday night, December 12, 2019 at 6:00 PM at Cokesbury United Methodist Church, 9908 Kingston Pike, Knoxville, TN 37922.

https://www.clickfh.com/obituaries/Walter-Woodrow-Woody-Law?obId=9510454#/obituaryInfo

Distinguished Service Award Recepient!

Contratualtions to our own Walter Law, who was awarded the “Distinguished Service Award” by ASHRAE Society at the Summer Meeting in Kansas City earlier this week. Walter’s service to our chapter has been legendary, but many of his contributions to Society have occured “under the radar,” so to speak. Walter has contributed on the Society level for Research, Nominations, and many other sub-committees. It is fitting that his service is being recognized at this time!

The photo above shows Walter mentoring mechanical engineering students at the University of Tennessee after speaking to our ASHRAE Student Chapter there.

Congratulations Walter!

Excellent Presentation by UT Student Team

We were fortunate to listen to one of Dr. Bill Miller’s Student Design Teams during our April Meeting. The team has utilized a refrigeration trainer that was substantially funded by our chapter for use by the University of Tennessee Mechanical Engineering Department. During the presentation, we learned what the students had mastered about the fundamental refrigerant cycle, their knowledge of refrigerants, and the methods that they used to control the components. The photo above included the custom-built programmable controller that was used for the project. Congratulations to the entire team on their graduation from the University of Tennessee!

Spring Golf Tournament a Success!

Despite some wet weather, our Spring golf tournament was a resounding success! The monsoons seemed to move out of our way with just a short, small drizzle early in the morning. A dozen foursomes enjoyed a great round of golf on Good Friday.

A big thank you goes out to the Tournament Chair, Andrew Myers. Thanks also to Zach Rose (Applied Engineering), Blake Forsythe and Matt Price (Hobbs), Ethan White and Andrew Bosse (Trane), and Al Weber (Gresham Smith) for their assistance on the planning committee.

The winning team consisted of Bill Miller (UT Student Chapter Advisor), Mika Solanvaara, Simon Pallin, and Colin Moskal - all from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Word has it that some fancy calculations went into their trajectories that day. Or, was in on the scorecard???

Winner of “Closest to the Pin was Simon Pallin from ORNL and Charlie Ledbetter of Trane had the “Longest Drive.”

This was a fundraiser for our Chapter, and a good one it was. We managed to have sponsors for all eighteen holes, as well as the beverage cart. Pictures of each hole sponsor follow - be sure and thank these folks when you see them!

Spring Golf Tournament Announced

It's just about that time of year! We will be having our annual golf fundraiser again this spring. See below for details regarding the event:

Who: ASHRAE East Tennessee chapter members, student members, and any potential members

What: Golf – Scramble format (Prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd)

When: Friday, April 19th - Shotgun start at 8:00 AM

Where: Dead Horse Golf Course

Cost: $200 per foursome, $55 for a single player

Breakfast and lunch will be provided. There will also be a sponsored snack/beverage cart driving around the course as well as coolers located around the course. The driving range will be open and range balls are included in the price of registration.

Please RSVP to Andrew Meyers by Wednesday April 10th and let him know if you are interested in forming a team as well as who your 4 team members will be. Also, please let him know if you are interested in sponsoring a hole which is $300 per hole. You will have a sign at the hole and will be recognized during the prize ceremony at lunch. Plans are to donate a substantial portion of the proceeds back to ASHRAE RP. All checks should be made out to East TN ASHRAE Chapter or you can pay the day of with cash, check or a credit card. Checks can be mailed to Andrew Meyers at 7101 Sherwood Drive, Knoxville TN 37919.

Be prepared to have a great time!

Winter YEA Event!

Young Engineers in ASHRAE (YEA) is sponsoring a social event at the Maple Hall Bowling alley downtown on Saturday, March 9th. YEA is sponsoring the event, but as always, members and potential members of all ages are welcome to come. Maple Hall is a small bowling alley located in the historic JC Penney building downtown. The space has 11 lanes, a full-service bar, small plate food offerings, and a lounge area for those, such as myself, not too skilled with a bowling ball. The event should be a lot of fun and a great opportunity to socialize with fellow ASHRAE members.  It is a small venue so please RSVP to zrose@appeng.com by Friday, March 1st so we can plan for and reserve adequate space.

Put ASHRAE In Your New Year Plans!

Andrew Meyers has finalized our meeting schedule for the remainder of the year and all meeting topics are posted on the “Meetings” tab. Additional detail and speaker biographies will be added in the near future. Please notice that the January and March meetings are scheduled just a bit later in the month to accommodate the ASHRAE Show in Atlanta and Spring Break. We hope that you will note these dates and make ASHRAE a part of your plans!