Niss Feiner has been in the HVAC and Plumbing industry since 2006 in both the contracting and engineering sectors. A firm believer in continuous education, Niss attained status as a Certified Engineering Technologist with the Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists and became the first in Canada to hold ASHRAE's Certified HVAC Designer (CHD) designation. As the owner of Delta-T Designs Inc, Niss provides innovative mechanical solutions for single family dwellings, multi-unit residential buildings and a variety of commercial occupancies. He is is also a professor in the HVAC Technology Program at George Brown College in Toronto, Ontario. As an avid ASHRAE volunteer, Niss sits on the Board of Governors for the Toronto ASHRAE Chapter, is Chair of the ASHRAE Society Historical Committee, sits on the ASHRAE Society Communications Committee, TC 5.10, Kitchen Ventilation, TC 2.2, Plant and Animal Environment, and as a subject matter expert, has contributed to ASHRAE's CHD Certification Study Guide as well as the upcoming Commercial Kitchen Ventilation Design Guide.

Elizabeth Primeau is an Engineer-in-Training, working as an outside salesperson with Total HVAC in Ottawa. Elizabeth studied mechanical engineering at the University of Ottawa and graduated in 2018. During her time in university, she worked at the Department of National Defense in procurement, at Indigenous and Northern Affairs on the Canadian High Arctic Research Center construction and as a mechanical estimator. Elizabeth has held many roles with ASHRAE, including Student Activities Chair, CTTC Chair, Membership Promotion Chair, TC9.01 Webmaster and now, Regional Vice Chair for Student Activities for Region II. Her passion for ASHRAE started when she was Student Branch President and has developed through years of chapter involvement. Elizabeth is working with Student Activities to encourage young kids to get involved in STEM and post-high students to consider HVAC as a career.

ASHRAE Journal:

ASHRAE Journal presents.

Kaitlyn Baich:

Hi everyone, and welcome back. This is ASHRAE Journal Podcast, Episode #18. I'm Kaitlyn Baich, assistant editor of ASHRAE Journal, and today's host.

So let's jump right into it. Picture this. You're only out of school a few years and you're excited to join the HVAC&R industry, great jobs, great profession, good money. But when you start breaking into the industry, you discover that in many cases you'd be the youngest in the company, let alone in the room. Is it a turnoff or a great opportunity?

The outlook for HVAC jobs remains strong; however, the lack of interest in the trade as a career among young people continues to cause concern. Despite the worry, other experts such as those at AHR Expo and ASHRAE Journal predict HVAC jobs will grow 15% over a 10-year period. With us today to talk about being a young person breaking into the industry are Elizabeth Primeau and Niss Feiner.

Elizabeth is an engineer in training working as an outside sales rep in Ottawa. Elizabeth is working with Student Activities as chair to encourage young kids to get into STEM and post-high students to consider HVAC as a career. Niss has been in the HVAC and plumbing industry since 2006 in both the contracting and engineering sectors. Niss became the first in Canada hold ASHRAE's Certified HVAC Designer CHG designation. To read their full and impressive bios, I invite you to visit the ASHRAE Journal Podcast page on ashrae.org.

We are so glad to have both of you with us today. So let's start with a personal experience question. What is it like to be a young person in a career with older opinions and views? And why is it important to have young engineers in the industry and in ASHRAE?

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah. Being a young person in this industry is definitely a benefit. I think any room that becomes more diverse is going to be better and get better ideas and move forward. There's always been young people in industry, in every industry forever. We're just the newest ones, and hopefully we're asking the right questions and pushing us in the right direction towards better groups and better ideas.

It's important to have young engineers in ASHRAE because we are the future of ASHRAE. And there's a lot of rooms in ASHRAE where there are no young engineers, and they're getting work done and they're doing good work, but they might not be doing the best work. And they might just need a bit of energy and just renewed interest, whether it's a bigger focus on diversity or energy efficiency or new technologies, a younger voice that's asking questions and maybe not leading, but learning, is needed in every one of those rooms just to keep us moving forward.

Niss Feiner:

I think that with a career that can span as long as it does for a lot of people, you have different priorities at different points in your life and your career. And if you've been in it for 30, 40+ years, then you're going to start focusing on things that are reliable, that things are tested and true, because maybe you're at a point where you don't want to take any risks. You're at a point where it's been working so far, but that's not really how things tend to advance. We don't push the limits or we don't advance the technology and practices by doing the same thing over and over and over again.

And so, an influx of young opinions and perspectives means you do have that kind of newer approach to things. These people aren't bound by convention. These people aren't necessarily bound by, "I'm five years to retirement. I don't want to rock the boat." And so, you have a certain freedom there that comes with that perspective and diversifying the opinions in the workplace. And it's not to say that the youngest minds are necessarily—there's something to be said for experience, but it's the diversification of those opinions that are very, very important. And so, we need outside opinions coming in from different age groups and from even different cultural backgrounds or different socioeconomic backgrounds. So, increasing the depth of the pool there, I think, is a good thing, and young people definitely can contribute to that.

Kaitlyn Baich:

For the people that are looking to kind of diversify, what are some of the best places for these young engineers to break into the industry, do you think? Of course, this varies from person to person, but maybe some ways that you both did.

Niss Feiner:

I think ASHRAE is the right place to do that, because there's so many technical committees, there's so many standing committees that you can go to that might even just pique your interest. Let's say you got out of school, you learn something that readily resonated with you, and it was a really cool thing that you'd like to be a part of. Well, you can find that technical committee and you can learn from industry veterans there, and you can hone your skills that way without even really getting into the workforce. So I think societies like ASHRAE or other relevant engineering societies are, from my perspective, one of the best ways to do that.

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah. I completely agree. And I think when you're in ASHRAE, you hear a lot of people's stories, you hear a lot of their ASHRAE story. And what I take from it a lot is that you need to find whatever your passion is and that's what you follow, right? I loved being a student member. I ended up loving being a student activity chair, and that's why I'm still working in that, years later.

And I think if you just find that passion and you do whatever drives you. Don't try and look and see, "Oh, what's ASHRAE looking at? Okay, I guess I'll be passionate about the hot topic." If you're passionate about something specific, whether it's indoor air quality, energy efficiency, or something even more specific, you can find your niche. And within ASHRAE, there are so many groups and so many things that you can do that you can find your home within ASHRAE. And I would just encourage anybody to take that chance, sit in meetings. We're a very welcoming society, and you can just sit in the meeting, spend an hour there, and maybe you leave there thinking, "Wow, I'm never going back to that TC. I'm never going back to that committee." Or you might think, "Wow, this is totally where I want to spend my time and put in my effort." You've just got to kind of take those younger years to find whatever your passion might be.

Niss Feiner:

If I could echo that for a second, you'd be really surprised as to how you can find your passion with things. So for an example, we have a Technical Committee that I'm part of, TC 2.2, Indoor Animal and Agricultural Environments. And when I went to the first meeting there, I was there for the same reason everyone was that year, and there was a big influx. And it was because of the emerging legalization of cannabis. So people wanted to be ahead of the gold rush. And so, there was a huge influx there, and I was there for the same reason, but I sticked around for reasons other people didn't, because I saw the opportunities for things like food security and remote environments in local growing and even the potential for space exploration. So it was surprising even for myself, because that's not why I showed up in the first place, but it was something that opened my eyes and that I realized that I could contribute.

And you also don't realize necessarily the perspective that you bring, because when I'm in that room, it's interesting how many people are there because they have experience on the animal side, but so few people on the growing side. And so, everybody has this really diverse background of experience, and I was able to bring a perspective on things like companion animals that we don't have a lot of documentation for in our manual or in a handbook. So even though you think you show up for one thing, you might find that you're drawn into it for an entirely different reason. And despite what your experience or your lack of experience might be, you might actually be the best person in the room to speak about that little niche topic. And it's amazing what opportunities you find when you just take that first step and walk into that room.

Kaitlyn Baich:

What about internships? Because I know those used to be a big part of breaking into the industry. And did either of you have internships?

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yes. Yeah, internships are a great way to sit at that table for four months, for eight months, for a year, and kind of live it. I did, we call it co-op programs up here, through my university. And so, I worked for the federal government in procurement on a construction project. And I kind of learned how the construction world worked and I kind of liked it. It was interesting to start to see something come together. I really enjoyed that. And then, I actually got to work as an estimator for mechanical contractors, so that gave me a bit of an insight into the world of tenders and bids and bid closings and that kind of crazy side. And I kind of loved it, but at the same time, it wasn't exactly what I wanted to do.

But through that internship, I was able to build relationships. I was taught very quickly how to understand mechanical drawings and where to find the information, how to read specs, how to ask questions when they don't maybe line up as well as you think from one to the other. And that really led me to my job that I have now, through my internship and through ASHRAE, those internships. And the last one for sure encouraged me to attend ASHRAE meetings, and that's where I ended up meeting my future boss. And it was just such a good opportunity to test the waters and learn. And I would encourage anybody to try and find that internship, whether it's their school or just looking for a summer job, working for anything in the industry that you might like and find your passion.

Niss Feiner:

For me, I'm afraid I can't really comment on internships that well. I didn't have, like I said, a typical career path into engineering. I started with my family's contracting firm, and with that I did project management and estimation as well as partially managing the company. And I found my interest and my niche in the engineering. And so, I didn't have to go out and find an actual internship. I kind of already had one for so long and then I just kind of created my own engineering job.

But I can say that I think regardless of what path you take, it does require that kind of drive and that thirst for knowledge and for experience. With an internship, you're there to experience things, you're there to learn on the job. And you have to kind of want to and you have to have the temerity to see it through. So regardless the situation, you're going to have to have certain qualities there to succeed, I think.

Elizabeth Primeau:

I would add too, when you're in your internship, just say yes to anything. If someone's like, "I'm going to site" and you have something else to do, just say yes. Go to site, learn. Just take as much time as you can. It's very rare that you are in the room, but don't have that much responsibility. Most internships, they don't expect a whole lot from you. Obviously, there's work to be done, but you're not expected to be making money for the company. They're kind of testing you out as well. So just take advantage of it and kind of use your inexperience to learn as much as you can and really enjoy it.

Niss Feiner:

And I can say as somebody who's managed apprentices and dealt with that, right? I expected my apprentices to screw up. They were there to learn. Obviously, we don't like to see that happen, but when an apprentice made a critical error and they came up to me, kind of head down, it was like, "Okay, what did we learn? I expect you to screw up. I'll get mad if you make the same mistake twice, but this is how we learn, this is how we grow."

And I can't say that every employer's going to be that way. I should hope that they would be, but say yes to everything. And like Liz said, they're not expecting you to be a money maker. They're not expecting to build a company off of your skill and knowledge. If they did, they wouldn't have hired an intern right out of university. So take all those opportunities you possibly can to learn. And then, what you find is when you do have all those skills or when you do have a diverse background of understanding, you can afford to be more selective. You can focus on the things you want to learn more about, because now you've already kind of built up that foundation.

Kaitlyn Baich:

Both of you, in one way or another, are involved in Young Engineers in ASHRAE or Student Activities. Can you kind of expand a little bit more about the benefits of joining Young Engineers in ASHRAE and/or Student Activities?

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah. I would say that on the Student Activities side, one of the biggest benefits for students, I find, is the networking, for sure. You get invited to program meetings, you get invited to events, usually at a discounted if not free rate for students. And so, you just get to show your face, and potential future employers or potential future clients or coworkers will get to see your face and get to know you and kind of know that you've committed to this industry, which can help you. It helped me in job interviews when I was talking to someone and they kind of stopped and thought, "I think I've seen you before." And I was like, "Yeah. I was at the ASHRAE meeting last month." And it just kind of breaks the ice. It makes it a little bit easier to have that conversation.

And I also think when you go to these events, you're there, there's a technical program, and you will sit through them whether you're enjoying them at the moment or not. But when it comes back six months later and you know what radiant panels are, just because you end up being at a radiant panel program, then you just kind of got that knowledge almost accidentally. You went to that program meeting to make connections, to find a job, to network, but you still did learn technical knowledge that's going to help you throughout. And I've gone to every program meeting that I can make it to in the last five years. And there's just things that I'm picking up that I'm now using at my job that I didn't even realize I remembered from a program meeting four years ago. So I'll just say, just always go. Always learn, be open to learning, and try and pay as much attention as you can and try and absorb that information.

Niss Feiner:

Absolutely. It's so important to continuously learn and want to learn. And even if you don't necessarily see the relevance right now, with Liz's point about, let's say radiant panels, right? If human beings never saw birds or creatures that flew, they could never have conceived the airplane. So if you have these little nuggets that you come across that maybe I don't see an application right now, maybe I don't see the relevance right now, but years down the road, you might come up to an application and you're like, "I think there's a technology that applies here." And you'll be drawn to a solution and you'll be drawn to explore and learn more. But if you never had that opportunity, if nobody ever mentioned that radiant panels were a thing that existed, then you might never be able to conceive of them on your own.

And so, it's really important to expose yourself to all these lessons, and very easy to get, because if you don't go outside of your company, you are bound to the knowledge and experience that is in the company itself. There's not necessarily any new fresh ideas that are coming in. And so, by taking these courses or going to these tech seminars or conferences, you are exposing yourself to that and bringing that information with you that you can then have a discussion about. And so, for me, learning is paramount. Having a willingness and an open mind to learn is the most important thing and the greatest asset that a YEA member could have.

Kaitlyn Baich:

At the professional level that you are at now, what are some of your goals for teaching this next generation of engineers? And Elizabeth, you are, of course, welcome to chime in on this as well.

Niss Feiner:

For me, I look at our industry, and I want to give a caveat here. Again, I didn't come up through a traditional background. So I came up through very much on the contracting side and have a bit of an appreciation for that, the experience and mentality that that sector brings. I actually have a lecture on avoiding conflict between engineers and contractors because I get to see both sides and kind of share that perspective.

For me, I think that in the industry I've experienced, we suffer a critical lack of imagination. A lot of people, a lot of contractors and a lot of engineers, are just content to keep doing the things that work. They're going to look at a problem and say, "I'm building a building. I'm going to put rooftops on it."

"Have you considered X, Y, Z?"

"No, we always do rooftops. That's the solution." And so, I really try to teach people that you have to break it down, the problem, and really understand the problem itself. And so, if you're looking at, "How do I heat and cool or ventilate a building?" The constraints of this problem does not begin and end at the envelope. You have to stand back and you think, "Okay. How are the occupants factoring in this? What energy sources do we have? What's around us?" You have to look at the problem holistically and then you might be led to different solutions. You might be like, "Hey, I was going to go with rooftops, but I've evaluated all these other things, and that's not the right approach for this job anymore."

And so, we're seeing that now, especially when there's a big drive for things like decarbonization and a big push for let's say cold climate heat pumps, which is a technology I believe in. But you find out very quickly that if you look at certain projects or certain locations, that technology should not be used.

And so again, that lack of imagination is something we have to get over. We have to realize that any solution can fit not just what we've traditionally done, and we need to know how to evaluate the whole set of constraints for a project to come to the right solution.

And so, that's the biggest thing I try to convey to my students, because a lot of time I'm teaching them in the context of furnace sizing or rooftop unit sizing. And I'm always reminding them, "Just because I'm talking about a rooftop or a furnace doesn't mean this is what you have to do. As long as you're generating heat, we could do anything. There's many different ways to generate heat. Don't limit yourself to convention. Limit yourself based on the actual problems you're trying to solve."

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yep. To echo that a bit, I work with some young engineers, and I find that they end up asking me, when I'm working on a selection, they end up asking me so many questions that we just essentially by accident, we end up doing something that's a bit more creative because they ask the questions. They didn't know that they were supposed to do a standard air-cooled gas unit. They asked me more questions. They were like, "Oh, well can we do it this way?" And so, I was like, "Oh, yeah. Let me ask the factory. Let me see what I can do." And so, those young engineers that, I think we talked about aren't bound by the rules, they end up being more creative just because they didn't even know that they were supposed to be fitting into this cookie cutter. It makes it a lot more fun to be creative in our office.

Niss Feiner:

And one thing I say in actually one of my lectures is, I worry that throughout the years we've essentially kind of commoditized engineering for a large regard. People come to me not with the mindset that they want my knowledge and experience to custom craft a solution for them. They're coming to me because I'm a guy who sells drawings, and they need drawings for permits. And so, I think we undervalue engineering. And customers certainly may, but we shouldn't be undervaluing ourselves. We bring a lot of knowledge and expertise and experience to this and we should be using that. We shouldn't be designing from a position of what's cheapest and most expedient. We should be crafting a solution using our knowledge and expertise.

Kaitlyn Baich:

So would you say that knowledge came right out of school, or were these skills that you kind of learned on the job? I guess in other words, do you both feel you got out of school knowing what you needed to know for this career?

Elizabeth Primeau:

Niss, I think you said untraditional kind of path. I took a very traditional path like math and science in high school, went into engineering, did the co-op thing. I was unprepared leaving school for my job. I did traditional mechanical engineering, so we covered heat transfer a little bit, fluid dynamics, a bit of that. We didn't do a whole lot of HVAC, and I was not prepared for it. But you learn it on the job, just going to ASHRAE things. That's kind of where I learned a lot of HVAC. I did some manufacturer training that helped me a lot understand HVAC. I know the Fundamentals ASHRAE course would kind of do the same thing.

But it wasn't through school. It was definitely through work experience, through having good mentors, through asking good questions, through taking notes and reading books and reading ASHRAE Journals and just paying attention when I could. Doing all that, that's what prepared me, and that's why I'm confident in my job and my technical abilities now. The school was definitely basics, the concepts, how heat moves and all that. I definitely needed to do that. I definitely needed those four years to just grow up from a high school student to an adult. But it definitely didn't give me the actual what my job would be kind of skills.

Niss Feiner:

For me, I often joke that my school was the streets, because I didn't go to a post-secondary program. I was never meant to be an engineer. I was supposed to be a pilot. I was supposed to buy my plane and go up north and be a bush pilot, and then somehow I got enticed or lured into this industry. And so, I had to learn everything piecemeal. I didn't have the foundation that most university students would have. I took very specific courses in heat loads, load calcs, duct design, hydronic design.

And so, I think it was almost kind of a very efficient approach. I learned exactly what I needed to learn in the time, so it was very context-oriented. But I also lacked a strong foundation, and my ASHRAE handbooks were just my bible, because I also didn't shy away from taking on work. They would be like, "Hey, can you design a pool?" I'm like, "Yeah, of course I can. Why not?" And then I'd be like, "I have no idea how to do this." So I'd open up the handbook and I would start reading and learning absolutely everything I could about natatorium design.

And I have a professional engineer I've been working with for well over a decade who reviews and seals my works, and he's been acting as a mentor, and others I found in ASHRAE as well. Shout out to Elizabeth's dad who's been a great friend and mentor and teacher of mine. And so, I really had to kind of dig in and learn everything piecemeal.

I remember one time, actually my first pool job, where I needed to do humidity enthalpy calcs. And so, I didn't know how to do that. I pulled out a textbook and I did two pages of just manual math. And I showed it to my engineer for review and he said, "Well, why didn't you just use a psychrometric calculator?" I was like, "Nobody showed me how. Nobody told me this was a thing." I had to learn everything piecemeal the hard way, very specifically for what I wanted to do. And when I didn't know what I was looking at, and now I'm like, "Okay, I've got to go learn the math and the science behind this and then get caught up."

So it was a very different approach, but I think the principle here is the same. Rather than having that foundation, I could learn in a very context-specific situation, but I still had to put in that work that others would have had to do in university, but for a very specific problem to solve. I like to think I'm pretty good at HVAC in plumbing engineering, but if you put me in mechatronics, if you put me in any other discipline that is still mechanical, I think I would barely tread water. So it was just something I was able to kind of figure out as I went along.

Elizabeth Primeau:

Can I add one more thing? I would just say for students, we get this question a lot in Student Activities, just exactly that, "Were you prepared when you left?" And I would tell people, It's okay to feel unprepared. You don't maybe realize how much knowledge you've gathered over those four years. If you've graduated from a college program or a university program, you are smart enough to do this job. You will learn the rest in the job. You've been taught the last three or four years, how to learn, how to take notes, and you're going to find mentors. You're going to find people that will help you learn the rest. It's okay to feel unprepared. Still apply for that job, still go to that job interview still do all that, and put yourself out there. It's very normal to finish school and just get that sense of, “Okay. Well, I spent four years doing labs and taking notes, but I'm not ready.” But you are. And we were all in that position and we've all figured it out. They can, too.

Niss Feiner:

Nobody knows what they're doing until one day they realize they know what they're doing.

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah.

Kaitlyn Baich:

So Elizabeth, you've kind of also talked about just going to the meetings, going to the tech meetings and all of that. For a young engineer, it could probably be very intimidating walking into that room. What could you say to those young engineers about walking into those meetings and how to kind of prepare for what they may experience?

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah. I would say, I don't know if I would ever have been prepared for being in those meetings. We've been saying, Just be in that room and don't expect to be the expert. Expect to go in there to learn. I've been in rooms where it feels like people don't understand what they're saying to each other. And I was like, maybe I’m just the one that’s confused. But if you can gather the courage to ask that question, you might actually help them figure out the misunderstanding. You’re just going to learn being in that room.

And I try to remind myself that everybody in that room has been in my shoes. They were all 22 and just out of school at some point, and they’re there and they’ve learned. And I like to ask people how they got to where they are, and I always learn a different story. And that’s because everyone’s stories are different and that’s the beauty of it. But just be in that room, learn as much as you can.

And like I said, you might go in that room and then learn that that’s not your topic. But you will definitely learn something in every one of those meetings, even if it's just how to run a meeting or how not to run a meeting. I've been in those as well. It doesn't have to be the technical skills, it can be the leadership skills, the meeting running skills, the learning not to interrupt, or whatever. You'll learn all that just by being in those rooms and just from absorbing it from repetition.

Niss Feiner:

For my own part, because of my lack of formal education, I've always been very insecure about my technical knowledge. And so, coming into those rooms for the first time, I experienced what everybody else did, that kind of sheer terror that, "I don't belong here. I'd better not say anything. Maybe I'll just kind of watch." And what I think is, most people don't walk into that room seeing what an opportunity it is. The stakes for you have never been lower and the payoff will never be higher. You can learn from people with technical expertise and ask questions that you don't have to worry about embarrassing yourself in front of a boss, embarrassing yourself in front of a client. You get an opportunity when you volunteer to work on research proposals, even if you're at that point in the committee where you're running the committee or maybe you're secretary. You can build this experience again without having to worry about jeopardizing your career.

You can only grow from that point, because now you can ask questions, you can make connections, get mentors, and you don't have to worry that it affects your ability to feed or clothe yourself. And so, going into that room is such a hard first step, but the payoff is enormous. And as I mentioned before, the difference in perspective that you might bring is amazing, because people get hung up on certain things.

Just as an example, with the Historical Committee, we were talking about a plaque that was being done, and there was a lot of discussion about this plaque and the historical commemoration and the program that we were going to launch. And then, I just kind of asked them like, "Oh, I'm just curious. Who's paying for maintaining the plaque?" And then, everybody just kind of sat there and they're like, "Oh, right." It was just an outside perspective. I was curious about it. And then, you kind of come across things that people were so focused on one part of the conversation, they didn't entertain the other part.

And I tell young engineers all the time you might think you might have nothing to contribute technically, but you can definitely contribute your perspective because that is something that nobody else in that room will have. And it doesn't matter how long they've been in their career, and they might have invented or discovered the most valuable technology we have, that person will never have your perspective. And that's something you can always contribute.

Elizabeth Primeau:

I would say for any young engineer going into a TC particularly, they need warm bodies that can read, that can look for typos, that can help run meetings, that can update their websites. That's how I'm learning. I don't have a whole lot of technical skills to contribute at this point. I'm learning them every day, but I can definitely update a website. I can definitely send out the minutes, I can take notes, I can take attendance, I can meet everybody. I just say yes to whatever they're offering, that way I get to meet everybody.

I would also suggest when it's your first time going into a room, if there's no familiar faces, maybe sometimes you can bring one along with you. Bring another young engineer, just try and find an ally in there. I often try when it's break, because usually these meetings go on for a while, we take a break, walk up to someone, introduce yourself and see if you can kind of build that connection. And those connections can last a really long time. There's people that I might have met four or five years ago, and I'll still say hi to them now and I just walked up them and said hi. And it's tough to make that first step, but ASHRAE is a very friendly place and people are there to network. They're not there to embarrass anybody. Everyone's there to learn and make connections.

Niss Feiner:

I've never experienced an organization that has been as open as ASHRAE is. There are times when you're not welcome, and that's only when they're an exec and they have to lock it down to no guests. Beyond that, they very much want you there. They recognize that the diversity in opinion is important. And not just diversity in opinion, but growing the society, and to borrow former President Mick Schwedler's speech, "They're feeding the roots." Right? They recognize that the Young Engineers are the next generation. And so, we need that constant stream of people coming in. We need people who are interested.

So even if you have a passing curiosity in a topic, just go to the TC. Sit there, say hi to people, get your name out there. And then, if all you do is sit quietly from then on out, that was still an important first step. It's hard to take, but like I said, the risk is so low and the payoff is so big.

ASHRAE Journal:

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Kaitlyn Baich:

Those skills that you're learning, of course, are important for success in your personal job, as you were saying, Niss, with the reward being so high. What are some other skills that you both may think are necessary for success, either in ASHRAE or on the job?

Elizabeth Primeau:

I think one of the best things that ASHRAE has done, and one of the biggest skills that I've learned, is just leadership skills. It's going to take me years and years to become an actual manager or a supervisor at my office, just based on how it is. But through ASHRAE, I was the chair of a committee my first year out of university. It was crazy. I was like, "Why am I in charge of this?"

But I said yes to that position, and they immediately expected me to put together my committee and run activities. And now, I'm Regional Vice Chair of Student Activities. I'm Post-High Sub-Committee Chair. I'm planning the Student Program in Atlanta. It's crazy how far I've come in five years, I think I graduated five years ago. And so, running meetings, getting people on time, assigning tasks, and making decisions on timing, on what speaker's going to come, what we're going to do, who's going to do what, those things. I'm learning how to make those decisions. I'm getting the opportunity to do them, which I simply adore.

And it's so good to get to do that and develop those skills through ASHRAE. ASHRAE’s the way that I'm learning how to do my job, it's just such an opportunity that I don't think I would have had in another organization. I don't know that there are a whole lot of other places where young engineers can learn those leadership skills. And like Niss said, it's a very low risk opportunity. If I kind of mess this up, I'm not going to get fired. I'm not going to lose my job. I'm not going to lose money. Obviously, people will be disappointed, I'll be disappointed. But it's one of those places where you get out more than you put in, and you just put in as much as you can and you go from there. And I really loved it. I think ASHRAE is one of those places where you can really develop those skills.

Niss Feiner:

I would agree. The leadership training I got was just invaluable. I've had leadership training in my younger years a bit, but this was an eye-opening experience in a couple of ways. One, I recognized that ASHRAE was reciprocating in my investment. I was volunteering at the chapter level, and not even any great contribution here. I didn't sign up on the exec. I wasn't the president. I showed up to meetings and I took photos, that was how I started. But they saw that, my chapter saw that. My chapter asked if I wanted to take some leadership training. And then, I went to the Leadership Weekend at HQ.

Elizabeth Primeau:

YEA Leadership Weekend, yeah.

Niss Feiner:

Which was awesome. And then, I ended up taking Leadership, I'm having a brain fart here, I think Leadership Academy, the two-day... It was in Portland with Ralph Kison, which also an amazing opportunity. If anybody's listening and has an opportunity to get sent or if you have the means of sending yourself, it is an enormous opportunity. Like I said, I had tremendous insecurity with my technical background, and that sort of training allowed me to realize, to actually use Ralph's company slogan, "You're better than you think you are." ASHRAE brought about a great amount of personal growth for me as well as professional growth that I could not have had without it, so it's been a fantastic opportunity.

And another thing I learned there in the topic of leadership is the distinction between IQ and EQ, emotional quotient versus intelligent quotient. And so, I don't think I'm saying anything particularly scandalous when I say that I think engineering attracts, for the most part, a certain type of personality. And that personality might not be great at talking or communicating and leading people. And so, it's a skill that needs to be honed.

And one thing Ralph said that up until this point in your career with university and everything, you have been rewarded or distinct based on your intelligence. And now you're in the workforce and finding out that everybody around you more or less has that. And so, now you need to distinguish yourself in a different way. And that's where emotional quotient comes in, and that's where leadership skills come in, and that's how you can continue to advance your career. And I'm sure we can all academically understand that or appreciate that. It's another thing to actually take that training, to actually recognize that within yourself and how you can apply that. And so, the leadership opportunities were just such a catalyst for me for professional and personal growth, that I can't thank ASHRAE enough and I can't convey enough how big of an impact it had.

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah. I did that YEA Leadership Weekend as well. I was in Portland, Maine and you might have done Portland, Oregon.

Niss Feiner:

Yeah, exactly.

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah.

Niss Feiner:

Opposite coasts.

Elizabeth Primeau:

And I look back at that group, and a lot of people in that group are now leaders at their chapters, leaders at their region. I've seen them around at conferences, and it just goes to show that when you invest in your members, they give back to that community. And I think I did that in November of 2018. I had been at my job for six months when I was sent on this, and it was so significant for my development. I was able to travel for the first time by myself, which was just on the personal side, just really great. But it also just taught me so much, like you said, just learning about the EQ side of things.

And growing up, I always really liked math and science, and my parents, who are both engineers were like, "That's great. You need to be able to communicate." When I was really young, I was like, "I don't care about French and English classes." They're like, "No, you need to communicate. If you have the best idea in the world and you can't express it, it's not the best idea anymore. It's just your imagination." Right?

And I think through that, I learned how to communicate with other people of different personalities. That's a challenge. Even if you're a really good communicator, to be able to communicate with someone who can be very different than you is a challenge, and that's when those leadership training opportunities really teach you that. And I did the Leaders one as well. So yeah, any YEA members, put yourself up for those. They are great. You get to learn so much about ASHRAE, about the leaders that are there today and who might be a leader with you in the future. You'll get to meet people that are YEA members now that, you see it in them, that you're going to see them around ASHRAE for a long time, so you might as well get to meet them now and build those connections so you can make friends.

Kaitlyn Baich:

And now that we've kind of touched on the past and present of your growing careers, I'd love to kind of pivot to what the future of HVAC will look like for these young engineers. How are maybe both of you or colleagues of yours preparing for the skills gap that may come about as the rise of these older engineers and/or Baby Boomers are retiring due to COVID or other things?

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah, if I can start. I've seen a lot of young engineers, we're calling young engineers 35 and under I think, they're being given a lot of responsibility really quickly. And part of that is because there's just so much work to be done. Part of it is, like you said, a lot of Baby Boomers and older engineers are retiring. They're taking a step back. And so, that means that it's on us young engineers to kind of fill that gap. And we need to be aware that it's coming. We need to know that there's a lot of work to be done. And I think our generation is set up to work smarter, not harder. And I think part of that is sharing knowledge. And ASHRAE is that place to do that.

I was explaining to someone when I was in Halifax, "What is ASHRAE?" to someone who is so non-technical. And I don't think I've had to do that in a long time. And I was like, well, it just kind of started because one person was doing one thing and someone else was doing something, and they realized that they should maybe decide on the best way to do it. And so we need to keep doing that. We need to keep sharing our ideas and sharing the best way to do things, because we can't all be reinventing the wheel every single time. No work's going to get done. We need to share those ideas and make ourselves more efficient in the way that we build things, in the way that we design things, and I guess operate things as well.

And there's a lot of challenges coming up with decarbonization, with refrigerants changing, with climate change. There's so much happening that we're going to have to handle on the technical side and on the people side, that it's up to us to prepare ourselves now and to learn now. And that's why I would encourage any young engineer to be involved in ASHRAE so that when you have to find a better way to do something, you're not still trying to figure out how to do it in the first place. You're not still learning how to design that building and then make it more efficient. You've already kind of honed those skills, because as you said, as Baby Boomers are retiring, it's going to be on us to fill that gap. And yeah, it's going to be a lot of work to be done. And those are the challenges we know about now. There's plenty of challenges that I'm sure we can't even think about that are coming down the line.

Niss Feiner:

Yeah. It's been what, a handful of generations since the Industrial Revolution. And as each generation kind of goes through its experience or its relationship between technology and the Earth, the previous generations had what they figured, a limitless supply of resources and a planet that we could sink our waste into endlessly and it would never become an issue.

And now we have a generation of emerging engineers that don't have that world view. I just saw an alert today that the UN said we hit 8 billion people today. The population is growing way quicker than any generation before could have imagined and using energy way more than any generation before could imagine. And so, we have a unique set of problems that the next generation of engineers are going to be faced with and a unique set of, well, maybe not necessarily a unique set of hopes, but in terms of interplanetary exploration, there's a lot of room to grow. There's a lot of new, cool things to apply our knowledge and experience to. And so, it's going to be things force our hand to grow and just an observation of opportunities to grow into.

The other thing I look at it for kind of that future growth for me, and this is just probably because of the perspective I had with my background, is engaging contractors. They're the other side of the coin here. I would love to see more contractors participate in ASHRAE. I recognize, as I'm chair of the Historical Committee, I know the history of ASHRAE being an engineering society and why it emerged distinct from the contracting society. But one thing I shout to anybody who will listen is the best design, the most energy efficient design isn't worth a damn if the guy or girl swinging the hammer doesn't know or buy into it, because at the end of the day, they have every opportunity to work against us on the design side.

And not that they're bad people, far from it. They are doing a lot of this in good faith. They just don't have the perspective that we have. And when clients are faced with conflicting information, "Well, my engineer says I should do this. But this contractor has been doing it for a lot longer than this engineer's been alive, and they're saying I need to do it differently." Who are they going to listen to?

And so, I think by kind of just focusing on a society for engineering, without really courting the contracting side or at the very least actively trying to educate them and encourage their participation, we are kind of fighting this with one hand behind our back. And so, looking to the future, that's why I love the fact that I teach would-be contractors. Most of my students at the college want to get an apprenticeship, want to be technicians, want to be installers. And so, I can share that engineering perspective with them so they understand what the system should have been doing in the first place. Why did the engineer pick that system to begin with? And then, we can work together to the same goal rather than fall into these somewhat adversarial relationships. So that's really motivating for me and one of the reasons I absolutely love what I do.

Kaitlyn Baich:

I have a good friend of mine who's a contractor, exactly what you just said, that there are contractors that also want to engage. They just aren't hundred percent sure how to do so, because they look at ASHRAE as engineering strictly and they don't know how to kind of break into ASHRAE as well.

Niss Feiner:

If I may as well then, to tie back to what we were discussing with the leadership and EQ and all these things, I feel like especially here in Canada, because we have the Iron Ring Ceremony and all that, it can reinforce some very negative traits in people. It can reinforce an ego if people already have one. And I know on a job site once, there was a conversation with the engineer, and he was saying to run duct through a place that it physically couldn't go. And the engineer said to him, "Listen, I'm the guy with the ring. You're the guy with the hammer. Just get it done." And that, to me, is such a failure in leadership and in EQ. We owe it to ourselves to take advantage of this. ASHRAE is begging for people. ASHRAE wants you to come. We want to pay for you to take this training. Take it up. You're only going to help yourself and the industry. There's far-reaching implications if you do participate and you do contribute.

Elizabeth Primeau:

I heard a story recently about a young female engineer, and she was going to site. And she was kind of going through that, where she had done this design that was maybe a little bit more innovative and needed buy-in from the contractor. And she had such a tough time getting people to buy into it. Part of it was the Iron Ring. Part of it was being a young female engineer and just coming onto the site with so many people. And it's a tough position to be in, because you have to respect the experience, right? They've been through it. They've done this a million times. They've seen hundreds of young engineers with great ideas that didn't go anywhere.

And so, part of that, and I would see obviously from the engineering side, you need to prepare yourself for that maybe conflict, but for those questions, right? So if someone asks you why I'm doing this, you should have a good answer for that. And your answer can't be, "Because I know better." It has to be, "Because I've thought it through. This is why, life cycle reasons or whatever, efficiency reasons." You need to prepare yourself for that and just don't go into it blind and expecting people to respect you because of your title. They should be respecting you because of who you are and what you say and the things that you do. And I think it's easy to kind of hide behind a title and think that someone's going to listen to you because you're the engineer. But you need to have good reasons and you need to be able to communicate them respectfully and clearly to people as well.

I think we're learning, there's a lot of trading out there about EQ. In ASHRAE, particularly, I think the younger generation is more open to listening to that. So I would think that we're going to be a generation that knows how to communicate with each other, that is learning about it, we're talking about lean design and all these things. It's just going to take a really long time to do that. It's not as easy. It's harder to do it. It can seem like it maybe costs more starting, so it's tough to get an owner on board. It's just going to take a long time for us to get there.

But I think our generation is going to be more open to those things just because we've been hearing it for longer. We aren't bound, like we talked about, by those rules. We're going to be a group that works together really well. It just takes time to do that and to build the experience. There's mistakes that need to be made by every kind of engineer that they'll learn. Even if someone tells you, sometimes you've got to make that mistake yourself for it to really sink in, so it's just going to take a little while.

Niss Feiner:

And just to touch on one thing Elizabeth said there about, like you said, respect. They can't just respect the title. You kind of have to back it up. One thing that I talk about in my design process lecture is that when you have all these options you could go with, I try to critically evaluate each one and ask, "Why does it suck?" And tear it apart, and whatever I don't disqualify is probably going to be the best solution for that project.

But the reason I suggest people go through that process is because somebody else is going to tear apart your design. The contractor is going to rip it apart, the client is going to rip it apart, and they're going to say, "You don't need this. You don't need that. Why are they making me do this?" And you need to do that before it's plotted, because you need to be able to defend your design.

If you can't defend your design, then it's a crappy design. You have to be able to articulate why you believe in it, why you chose to go that way. You may not be able to convince everybody, but you have to be prepared to have that conversation and believe in yourself at that point. So it's important, like you said, to be able to communicate that.

And the only reason a set of drawings exists is to communicate the intent of the designer. If the drawings suck, and if you can't convey that information properly, you didn't do your job properly. So it's really important to kind of have those skills and really think about that.

And as far as this generation versus subsequent generations, I just love what I'm watching happening with Gen Z or the Zoomers. The world that the generations before us grew up in professionally doesn't exist anymore. I don't know anybody who's going to start their career right out of college and retire with a gold watch at the end of a long career anymore. That world is gone. And the Zoomers weren't born into that world, so they're not bound by that convention. They have a completely different set of social rules that some of us may or may not well understand, but they understand quite well.

And they have a different set of problems. They're looking at a world that has been exploited and a previous husk of what it was, and are being told, "There. Now go do what we did and that's how you'll be successful." And they realize that that isn't true. So they have to figure it out themselves.

And I'm absolutely here for it. I do love seeing this generation kind of stand up against that previous idea and kind of kind of make a go of it themselves. And for me, David Underwood, the former President of ASHRAE, I'm sure other people have said it, but I'll credit him. He said, "Engineers, we are in the solutions industry. That's what we do. We provide solutions to problems." And this generation is providing solutions to the problems that they were handed. And we might not like it, but we're from a different time. Yes, I am 36. I'm technically not YEA member anymore, so I'll say that I'm part of that old generation now. But that's a beautiful thing, that they are looking at the problems that they were given and they're coming up with solutions. And that's exactly what we should be encouraging whether or not the solutions are what we would have done.

Elizabeth Primeau:

One note on what you were saying about defending your design and stuff. If it ever happens that you're a young engineer, you make that mistake. You could have made the mistake. Maybe your design is bad and you didn't think it through. Just remember that it's not you that someone's mad at, it's your design. You need to separate your work from your person. And I think our generation, because we're so connected through computers and through technology and everything, we can really see everything as one. But you need to separate your work product from yourself. And don't take that home and be like, "I totally messed up everything. I suck. I'm the worst." You can make that mistake. You're going to have to learn from it. Maybe it costs money. Maybe people are upset. Maybe someone has to cover for you or something. But you need to kind of separate that because it's going to be tough.

As an engineer, you're going to make mistakes. You're going to learn. You can't know everything from the start. You don't know everything from school. You don't know everything when you're 20 years in, because technology is always changing. And so, you just need to take those mistakes as learning opportunities, which they are, and just keep going and try not to take things personally, which can be very, very difficult, especially when maybe it was your decision and you thought this was so smart, and then just everything falls apart and whatever. But it's not who you are, right? It's Liz the engineer, but it's not Liz, the person that is to blame. And so, you just need to kind of keep going and protect yourself and your mental health.

Niss Feiner:

I wanted to say that, absolutely. Take care of your mental health, absolutely. Whatever resources you need or are available to you, take advantage of them. I don't mind saying I have a therapist that I speak to quite regularly, because the human brain is too complicated and the world is too complicated for me to be trapped alone with my thoughts.

And I remember about five years ago crying in a CCAN, thinking that I had no value in terms of my technical skills as an engineer or as a contractor. And I was ready to leave both industries. I felt I had no business. And so, when I said looking back and not even recognizing where I came from, that part is very real. It is so easy to get stuck in your own head. There's a whole spread, there's a whole spectrum of people on the contracting end, so it's not fair to group them together.

But there's still some of that pervasive mentality of that toughness or that kind of rough and tumble, that you can't hack it in this industry if you're emotionally weak. So some people can be really cruel, or some people might be a bit more rough than they mean to be. And we have to have allowances for ourselves and others to be human beings and screw up. And God knows, I screw up all the time. My students screw up all the time. That's just the reality. That's why we have things like peer review. That's why we should never, ever trust a young engineer to just go and do something, because people will screw up. And we need to be there to catch the mistakes that human beings make, and we need to support them. But you also have to be able to support yourself.

So any young engineers listening, if you have the resources, if you have the company benefits to support your mental health, please, please absolutely do so. This is a very hard industry that expects a lot of you. And if you are already that type of person, that you have that drive, that you place so much value in your work ethic or your intellect, then when you start coming up against walls that challenge that, that can lead to dark places if you're not prepared to work through that. It's just important.

I have lost a friend to suicide. I have friends who lost friends to suicide. It's just so, so important that we do take care of ourselves because nobody can do it alone. And it's easy to just think that you aren't enough. It's easy to think that you weren't prepared for this, and, "I don't belong here." But the fact that you got through university, or the fact that I, even without going to university, got to this part, this level, means that you do belong here. You've met the challenge, you've succeeded. And you're going to struggle, but we all struggle. So take care of yourself. That's all you can do.

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah. Use your vacation days, too. They're there for a reason.

Niss Feiner:

Oh, absolutely.

Kaitlyn Baich:

I love that we're kind of ending on that point, because mental health, I think is a big thing for this current generation, that more people are willing to prioritize their mental health, so I appreciate you sharing, Niss. I was a part of an organization in college for suicide prevention, so I do, from the bottom of my heart, appreciate you making it a point to talk about these things. And Elizabeth, thank you so much. As we wrap up this episode, can we get some final thoughts from both you, Elizabeth and Niss?

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yeah. I would say, final thoughts to any engineers or young engineers or students listening is just to be brave and to take those steps. It can be really, really hard. And it might take a bit of pressure from your peers or from yourself, but just believe in yourself and keep going. And it's not a straight line. You're not just going to start doing it, and it's going to go well from there. You might have setbacks. There might be things in your life that change your situation that you can't for a year or whatever. And you might get involved in ASHRAE and it's not for you. And that could be the case as well, but just take those chances and find your home. And hopefully, people can find as much joy and surprises as I have in ASHRAE, and find the joy in it and the passion in their career.

Niss Feiner:

For me, the parting note I would give would apply to young engineers and old engineers and employers, is keep an open mind and be curious. For the older engineers, to have an open mind to what the younger engineers are saying. Entertain the thoughts. It might not be a good idea, but it might lead to a better idea or a learning opportunity. And for the young engineers, keep an open mind as to what you might be interested in, or be curious about what might interest you. Walk into those Technical Committees, walk into the Standards Committees, or even the Standing Committees that help ASHRAE function. See what it's about. You never know what might resonate with you and what might interest you enough to hook you in. And for me, that's the best advice I think any engineer could have, is be curious and be open-minded.

Kaitlyn Baich:

I'm Kaitlyn Baich, assistant editor, and we will see you next time.

Elizabeth Primeau:

Yay.

Kaitlyn Baich:

The ASHRAE Journal Podcast team is editor John Falcioni; managing editor, Kelly Barrazza; producer and associate editor, Chadd Jones; assistant editor, Kaitlyn Baich; associate editor, Tani Palefski; and technical editor, Rebecca Matyasovski. Copyright ASHRAE. The views expressed in this podcast are those of individuals only, and not of ASHRAE, its sponsors, or advertisers. Please refer to ashrae.org/podcast for the full disclaimer.