August 2012
The 2012-2013 year is now up and running! Our Board of Governors are planning a great year for all of our Chapter members with informative monthly meetings, a planned tour of the newly renovated downtown Cathedral, a sustainability project that we hope many of our members will volunteer for and get involved, our second annual poker tournament and our second annual fall golf tournament. We are also setting up an ASHRAE student chapter at Wichita State University and giving away our first scholarship to one lucky student.

Our website will continue to expand this year with the addition of some new features including a Business(Product & Services) Directory and a Classifieds Directory. The website will keep you informed of upcoming events, and will be an “all in one” source for everything Wichita ASHRAE. You, as a member, will be able to RSVP to events, pay online, and get confirmation straight from the website again this year, making it easier than ever to be an active ASHRAE member.

And speaking of members, do you know anyone that would be a great addition to our chapter? Please send them over to www.ashrae.org/join to sign up! It’s easy, and the benefits are worth every penny.

If you don’t feel like you are getting every dollar out of your ASHRAE membership, come to the meetings. Each month this year, we’ll highlight a new way ASHRAE helps you. We as members have powerful tools available that all of us should take advantage of.
We are always looking for members to utilize their talents in helping ASHRAE. If you know of a great speaker, think you’d be a good Science Fair judge, like to organize meetings or events, or know of a great tour, let us know! If you would like to serve on regional or society wide committees, come see how it’s done at our monthly meetings. There are many ways to make ASHRAE a greater organization for all of its members.

Have a great year! If there is anything you would like more information regarding, give me a call or email, I’d love to talk to you. 316.265.9655 or [email protected].
Sean Miller, P.E.
[email protected]
316.265.9655


September 2012
What a great first month to the start of the 2012-13 ASHRAE year! Our 2nd Annual Fall Golf Tournament was a huge success. The Chapter managed to raise enough money to donate $5,000 to Research/Promotion along with more to stock the cupboards with for future scholarship funds, 2014 CRC funds and other Chapter Activities. Our September meeting on Geothermal vs. Variable Refrigerant for the ASHRAE HQ Building drew in close to 50 people. We also kicked off not one, but two Chapter Sustainability projects for the year. Speaking of a sustainability project, please don’t forget to volunteer to work at the Fresh Air Baby Camp Demolition Day and help represent ASHRAE. The work day is scheduled on September 29th in North Riverside Park with two shifts available, free lunch and live musical entertainment.

Our Student Activities committee also helped kick off a group of senior design students, and new ASHRAE Student members, on their project at Wichita State University. The students are using the ASHRAE Design Competition project as their capstone project and have officially registered to compete in the Building Loads and Calculations event. All of our Student Activities efforts in the month of September have already earned the Chapter the distinction of being the first Chapter to reach par in PAOE or Presidential Award of Excellence points in our Region.

October is already shaping up nicely. We have a great program lined up on Variable Frequency Drives. Also at our October meeting we will be having a Membership Drive and will offer a $50 discount off of any new memberships. If you are not currently a member or know others in your company who are not please have them come to the meeting, fill out an application and bring a check for $140. The Chapter will pitch in the remaining $50 and get you signed up. Our Membership chair will also recognize the top three companies in the area who have the most employees currently signed up as members. Also, look for upcoming news on how to sign up to advertise your company and its services on the Chapter website.

Sean Miller, P.E.
[email protected]
316.265.9655


October 2012
With Election Day fast approaching (November 5th in case you didn’t know!), it is time to think about how our choices during the election will affect our engineering profession and contemplate how we as an engineering profession can get more involved in the political process. There are many issues relative to engineering that are constantly brought up in our local, state and national governments. Whether it be the Qualification Based Selection vs. Fee Based Selection debate, proposed sales tax on professional services, Energy initiatives, licensure requirements, Engineering Student Loan Forgiveness, etc. we all need to be aware of what is going on and offer our expertise and knowledge to those in positions to make changes.

I urge each and every one of you to learn who your local state senator and representative is and contact them. Take them to lunch and introduce yourself. Educate them about what you do, where you do it and how you can be of assistance if the need ever rises. Do you know how many Professional Engineers there are in the Kansas Legislature? Zero. There are plenty of lawyers, plenty of doctors and so on but no licensed engineers. If you can introduce yourself to your local representative there is a very good chance that when an issue comes up that involves engineers they may remember you and seek you out for your opinion. That’s how you can help make a difference.

In the meantime, educate yourself on the key issues facing our profession by visiting www.ashrae.org/government-affairs/public-policy-issue-briefs-letters-testimony as well as http://www.acec.org/advocacy/keyissues.cfm. Get involved by contacting ASHRAE’s Manager of State & Local Government, Mark Willis by email at [email protected]. Remember, “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

Also, Don’t Forget to Vote!

Sean Miller, P.E.
[email protected]
316.265.9655


November 2012
Winston Churchill once said, “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.” These words sum up the effect being a volunteer can have. ASHRAE offers a wide array of volunteer opportunities for all of our members and we encourage everyone to participate. Of course the obvious one is to volunteer for service in ASHRAE as a local Chapter Board or Committee member. There are also opportunities to serve as a volunteer for ASHRAE at the Regional and National level. It just takes getting involved. Other volunteer opportunities that our Chapter has lined up this year so far include participation in our two Sustainability projects, Kansas Science Olympiad, Project Lead the Way, Block Kids and the WSU Engineering Open House.

We desperately need some contractor members to step up and volunteer for help with the two sustainability projects, both which will need to be constructed in Spring of 2013. For Science Olympiad we will be helping with two events at the State tournament held on the first Saturday in April (National Volunteer’s Month!) at WSU. The events are Thermodynamics & Mag-Lev. We need an Event Supervisor for Thermodynamics and volunteers for both. Project Lead the Way is a pre-engineering curriculum at the Derby Public Schools and they need local engineering mentors to help the students. Block Kids usually takes place in February and is sponsored by NAWIC. ASHRAE typically provides judges to the event which has students build an array of structures out of legos.

Also, during February and National Engineers week there are many opportunities to have local students interested in engineering to shadow you for half a day or so. We will also need members to volunteer as judges for the WSU Engineering Open House where the Senior Design projects will be on display. Needless to say, opportunities for volunteering abound in our area and for our membership. Get involved in one or more of these causes and represent ASHRAE and our profession for the good of others. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have interest in volunteering for any of these.

Sean Miller, P.E.
[email protected]
316.265.9655


December 2012
The end of 2012 is almost upon us and by the look of things we survived the end of the world…for now. We had a great start to the 2012-13 ASHRAE year. For those of you who don’t know we run the ASHRAE year from July 1st to June 30th. Thus far we have revived the newsletter(Thanks Melanie!), had our most successful golf tournament ever, launched our online business directory, started a ASHRAE-Wichita Chapter Engineering Scholarship at Wichita State University, held a very successful tour of the downtown Cathedral (Thanks Greg!), setup both a Facebook and Linkedin Page, and almost reached 2/3 of our Research/Promotion donation goal in the first half of the year. What an incredible start! A big thank you goes out to all of our great Board of Governors members and of course our membership at large. Let’s keep up this momentum as we move into 2013.

What can we expect in 2013? We have some great upcoming speakers for our monthly meetings starting with Brandon Wallace from BRD in January who is coming to show us how to specify acoustics. We also have two Distinguished Lecturers in the coming months and a tour of the new downtown YMCA. Our two Sustainability projects will be kicking into high gear as well. Our second annual Poker Tournament is also coming up in late January. We will also be launching a new Classifieds section of our website. It looks like lots of great things to look forward to in the coming year. Keep up the good work and have a great Holiday!

Sean Miller, P.E.
[email protected]
316.265.9655


March 2013
Spring is officially here, even though as I write this we are expecting up to 4″ of snow. Welcome to Kansas! We are officially in our home stretch to finish out the 2012-13 ASHRAE year. With March ending we have just two more lunch meetings. Our April 3rd meeting will feature ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer Sheila Hayter, PE who will be speaking about Renewable Energy with a Case Study of a net-zero energy building project she was involved with. Our Chapter will also be featuring this meeting as a Membership Drive and Employer Recognition. We are encouraging those not yet members of ASHRAE to sign up and if you do so the Chapter will pay $50 of the $190 membership fee. The Chapter will cover the entire $20 membership fee for all new student members. Also, as a bonus all current members who are listed as Associate Members are encouraged to take a few minutes and upgrade their status on www.ashrae.org to Member if they qualify. To give everyone an incentive the Chapter will have a drawing for a new Kindle Fire Tablet at the April 3rd meeting. Those individuals who upgraded their membership, or joined ASHRAE as a new member or student member are eligible for the drawing.

Of course with Spring arriving there are other changes in the air especially on the current Board of Governors. Our former VP Ryan Haug has moved up north to the big city joining Henderson Engineers as a Mechanical Designer, our Honors & Awards Chair Darren Garrison has joined Experitec as an Account Manager and I have made the move to Knipp Equipment/Kansas Trane as the new Director of Energy Services. Special congrats also go to Dane Pletcher of PEC who while working tirelessly as our Membership Chair has also taken on the responsibilities of being our new Chapter Vice-President.

The year isn’t over yet and we still have loads to do. The Chapter is still currently in first place in our Region for PAOE points and we hope to continue that. We will be getting our Wichita State University Student Chapter officially setup. The Sustainability projects will continue. Last but not least, we still need to finalize our Research/Promotion donations for the year. Let’s finish strong!

Sean Miller, P.E.
[email protected]
316.265.9655