Welcome Message

Welcome to the Ottawa Valley Chapter of the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE).

Founded in 1894, ASHRAE is an international organization of 55,000 persons. Its sole objective is to advance through research, standards writing, publishing and continuing education, the arts and sciences of heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) to serve humanity and promote a sustainable world.

The Ottawa Valley Chapter was established in 1952, and supports roughly 500 local ASHRAE members, of which approximately 200 are Chapter members. Our membership is comprised of a diverse group of men and women from the various fields in the HVAC&R and construction industries; e.g. consulting engineers, contractors, developers, facility managers, federal, provincial & municipal government, manufacturers, researchers, sales organizations, students, university and college faculty.

Our Chapter meets the third Tuesday of the month from September to May (excluding December) and typically consists of a tour or technical session, followed by a social gathering starting at 5:30 pm, dinner at 6:30 pm and the featured presentation to round out the evening. The meetings are held at Restaurant International at Algonquin College Woodroffe Campus, with the exception of the September meeting, which is occasionally held at a different venue.

The cost of a Chapter Membership is $60.00 and $30.00 for students. Chapter membership gets you a copy of the Ottawa Valley Chapter Roster which contains the contact information of the roughly 500 local ASHRAE members, monthly electronic access to chapter newsletter and discounts on Chapter meetings, seminars and events.

I hope you enjoy our web site and look forward to seeing you at our chapter meetings.

Yours very truly,

Roderic Potter
2013-2014 OVC President

Presidential Message April 2014

As some of you may remember I was Chapter Historian for a few years and because I also controlled the website I was in a very advantageous position - not only could I dig up interesting tidbits - I could also easily post them for all to see. Over recent months my mind has been on other things, helped enormously by the steadfast work being handled by our own Aaron Dobson, who has tirelessly taken on the role of Historian, his trusty camera in hand at virtually every OVC event. He even posts the photos on Picasa without my input and all I have to do now is link to the albums (sweet).

So recently I was cleaning out my pit of an office when as expected I came across some old ASHRAE Historian worksheets that reminded me of what I was planning to do "next". It involved proper posted recognition of "Service History" for our members across the years. The website already recognizes people for their hard work but generally only when they have served on the Board, i.e. Governor level and above. We all know that there is a great deal of work undertaken on the various committees behind the scenes, which is also entirely worthy of recognition, so over the past few days I have been adding Service History pages to the website. Thus far I have created the page for each Chapter President right back to 1952, and I am now gradually adding the pages for people that never went that far (but could well have devoted a great deal of time and energy to the Chapter). The Service History pages are quite revealing because they instantly make clear just how much precious time individuals have given up - to make the OVC clock tick reliably. They also show all of the photos currently filed for the person - and it is sometimes fun to compare hairstyles through the years. I had to laugh the other day when I was building the page for Bob Kilpatrick - and was reminded that in the 1990's he sported a Pancho Villa moustache. Take a look at his photo from the 1993-1994 Chapter Year and see what you think:

http://www.ashrae.ottawa.on.ca/ashrae-ovc_history/ExecBio/Bob_Kilpatrick.shtml

Bob has been under the weather over recent months and his role as Nominations & Awards Chair has been graciously accepted temporarily by Past-President Stephen Lynch. It was pleasing to build Bob's History page and let him know that although he is "away from his desk", he is not forgotten by his friends. We can expect Stephen to announce the proposed succession plan for the 2014-2015 Chapter Year at our April 15th meeting, and I expect my colleague Steve Moons will be blessed with a strong team for his Presidential year. Hopefully Bob will be back in action as part of that team!

Cheers from the desk of Rodders CAS.

Roderic Potter
2013-2014 OVC President
rod@rodders.com