Tom Lawrence, Ph.D., Fellow ASHRAE, is a Professor of Practice Emeritus with the University of Georgia and has over 40 years of professional experience. He spent his first 18 years of professional practice in industry. After going back for his Ph.D. at Purdue, he started the academic phase of his career at UGA in January 2004. Before his retirement in the summer of 2023, Dr. Lawrence was the Mechanical Engineering program coordinator at UGA. He is a former chair of ASHRAE Technical Committee 2.8 and is a member of the committee that wrote and maintains ASHRAE Standard 189.1 for High Performance Green Buildings. As an ASHRAE Distinguished Lecturer, he gives seminars related to high-performance buildings at venues around the world. Dr. Lawrence was named an ASHRAE Fellow in 2017 and was a Director-at-Large on the Board of Directors for ASHRAE from 2016-2019.

Filza H. Walters, FESD, Fellow ASHRAE, is a Professor of Practice in Architectural Engineering at Texas A&M University (TAMU). She has participated in the AREN program’s growth, its ABET Accreditation and the DOE's Net Zero Design Designation. Her work earned her ASHRAE’s E.K. Campbell Award for exceptional service and teaching. Previously, Professor Walters established Michigan's first ABET-accredited baccalaureate-master’s architectural engineering program. Her leadership in the field is further highlighted through professional service roles including as secretary of ASHRAE’s College of Fellows Executive Committee, treasurer for ASEE’s Architectural Engineering Division, and faculty advisor for TAMU’s ASHRAE and AEI student chapters. She was also elected to the inaugural Scholarship and Multidisciplinary Department Promotion and Tenure Committees. In ASHRAE, she was the first female president of the Detroit Chapter, RVC for Research Promotion and a member of the Publishing and Education Council. Her committee work includes chairing the Training and Education Committee and contributing to ASHRAE’s Exposition Policy and Technical Committees. She received ASHRAE Awards including Chapter Service, Regional Distinguished Service and Government Activities. She initiated and created two EmpowHERment awards for the Women in ASHRAE Leadership Symposium. A Fellow of ASHRAE and ESD, Professor Walters is a trained ABET Program Evaluator and her work spans publications, grants, course development and projects with Ford Motor Company, the EPA and the US Department of Energy.

Mike Pouchak, Fellow ASHRAE, works as a Systems Architect and Development Engineering for Honeywell International. He is voting member on ASHRAE Technology Council, active on TC 1.4 Control Theory & Applications, TC 1.5 Emerging Computing Applications and TC 7.5 Smart Buildings. Mike has recently served as chair of ASHRAE Research Administration Committee and serves on Guideline 36 High-Performance Sequences of Operation for HVAC Systems. Mike recently completed his role as College of Fellows president from June 1, 2022 to June 30, 2024. He has recently been selected to lead the National Academies of Science Assessment Panel of NIST for Energy-Efficient, High-Performance Buildings Goal: Net-Zero Energy, High-Performance Buildings Program and Embedded Intelligence in Buildings Program. Mike has worked in many roles including Hardware Development Engineer, Systems Engineer, Development Engineer and Engineering Manager for over 30 years. Mike is a registered Professional Engineer in the State of Minnesota.

ASHRAE Journal:

ASHRAE Journal presents.

Tom Lawrence:

Okay. Welcome, everybody. This is the ASHRAE podcast describing the ASHRAE College of Fellows. We're going to talk about what the is the College of Fellows, and, also more importantly for someone who went through this, how did you become an ASHRAE Fellow?

My name is Tom Lawrence. I'm a retired professor of practice at the University of Georgia College of Engineering. I am the current president of the ASHRAE College of Fellows. I sort of happened into that mode at that point. We have two other representatives of the College of Fellows, Filza Walters and Mike Pouchak, who are also going to help out with this session. So, with a little background, let's start with that.

I spent 18 years in industry, and then in the year 2000, I had a midlife crisis. I think I'll quit the corporate job, go get a Ph.D., and go teach. So I did that. I went to Purdue to get my Ph.D. and then went to the University of Georgia. I spent nearly 20 years of doing that. Then, in July of 2023, I got old, I retired, and so I'm moving on for that. It's interesting how College of Fellows can contribute to ASHRAE and to society, in general. So, we prepared this podcast for you to help find out about that. I'll hand it over next to Filza. You want to go next and talk about yourself?

Filza Walters:

Sure. Thanks, Tom. I'm Filza Walters. I'm a professor of practice in architectural engineering at Texas A&M University. I have been a professor in, as I like to say, this chapter of my life, for about 10 to 15 years. But like, probably, most of our listeners, there's many chapters in our professional lives and the first chapter out of university, I was a graduate of Kansas State University. I also studied architectural engineering. The first chapter consisted of working in a professional architectural engineeringf firm, multinational firm, essentially, being a consulting engineer. I did that for many years, worked my way up to being a project manager.

When I tell students about what the kinds of projects I worked on, I always say, "We're so fortunate in this industry, we get to work on projects really from letter A to Z." I'll certainly talk more about that later. After my first chapter as a consulting engineer, the second chapter consisted of working for an owner, so getting a chance to hire engineers and architects to actually see that the projects come to life.

And then, of course, as most of us do, we try to look to what is it that we can do to sort of give back. And I certainly saw that there was a gap in the production of and the preparation of the workforce for our industry. So, I thought that perhaps there's something that I can do. And I helped to start an architectural engineering program up in the north and then came down here to the south as our program was being launched. I'm glad to be here today with you, Tom.

And I guess, I'll turn it over to you, Mike, to give an introduction.

Mike Pouchak:

Hi. Thank you, Filza. My name's Mike Pouchak. I currently work as an R&D engineer in system architecture and engineering staff for Honeywell in the Building Automation, Building Management Systems group. Before I started at Honeywell, I have background or bachelor's in electrical engineering. I worked in the Automatic Test Equipment (ATE) industry, doing high-speed logic interfaces and computer design, and had enjoyed the software piece. I came over to Honeywell as development engineer, and have been in the industry working with HVAC systems, DDC controls, and building automation controls for several decades. It's been a very rewarding experience.

My involvement in ASHRAE has been along with my career in the HVAC industry. It's been really a fantastic opportunity to grow professionally, to grow technically. Though I'm just the past president of the ASHRAE College of Fellows, I just can't say enough about the opportunity that I've had through ASHRAE. ASHRAE is like a mini-MBA program in leadership. It's a great, excellent technical training tool. You network and meet people from across all disciplines, which is a really cross-discipline knowledge is a fantastic area to have exposure to.

Served chair as the Technical Committee for TC 1.4 Control Theory and Application, and also TC 1.5 Emerging Computer Applications. So, served on those roles have been very, very influential in my career. I also currently serve now on the ASHRAE Tech Council. I've got past associations. I actually serve on a Residential Building Committee, a past chair of RAC and Electronic Communications Committee. So anyway, I turn this back over to Tom.

Tom Lawrence:

Thank you, Mike. First, we want to answer the question, "What is the College of Fellows?" ASHRAE created a fellow grade member for ASHRAE a while back. I can't remember exactly when, but what it is, it recognizes those members that have achieved beyond the member grade to have a significant impact on the industry. Now within ASHRAE in terms of functions of the society, but also more within the industry in general. So it is a recognition of people that contribute to the overall HVAC in our industry. So a fellow is just at the highest level of membership grade you can have besides presidential member. We won't go into any more than that.

So the ASHRAE Fellows are set up. We have the College of Fellows, and the way it works right now is that everybody, once you are voted in to be a member grade of ASHRAE Fellow, you are automatically part of the College of Fellows. So we're all in this together. We're working from that, and that's something that worked on and talked about into the future of how this works out. But the ASHRAE College of Fellows is given a mission within ASHRAE to help contribute to both the society, ASHRAE society, and society in general, in terms of our industry, what we do.

So we serve as a guidepost, review of guidelines and standards. We serve as a role in that and also as a mentorship for younger members within the industry in general, not only within ASHRAE, but just kind of students how to help and become part of ASHRAE and also what we do within society. So ASHRAE College of Fellows has a limited role in terms of financial, what we do, but some of the things that we do. We also sponsor some scholarships for graduate students to become part of the ASHRAE Society. Mike, I think we had on the list there, you could talk about how the financial aspects of or ASHRAE College of Fellows works.

Mike Pouchak:

Sure. So the ASHRAE College of Fellows was originally intended as kind of a collection or a subset of the fellow grade, as you mentioned before. And early on in the organization, the College of Fellows, there was a strong desire to be independent. In fact, financially independent. So, the very first College of Fellows group was, in fact, a separate, standalone organization. In fact, they went so far as to create a 501(c)(3), a separate independent organization.

Because of the overhead and the complexity of managing a separate organization, they are, in fact, part of the ASHRAE nonprofit umbrella. Of course, the independence still exists, but it's more a financial independence. So, the ASHRAE College of Fellows does its own fundraising, and part of the way they fundraise is through solicitation letters to other College Fellow members. These solicitations are typically done in the spring. They've been very successful, and they allow funding of the programs that you just mentioned before, including the College Fellow Student Travel Award.

So, this year, in fact, for the first time in several years before COVID, we reinstated the College Fellow Graduate Student Travel Award. It allows graduate students up to $2,000 to attend two ASHRAE conferences, $1,000 per conference. This year, we select Shayan Mirzabeigi and Jongki Lee to be the recipients. So, there's a direct relation between the ability of the College of Fellows to fundraise and to support programs like the College Fellow Student Travel Award.

It's been very successful because of the close connection between the College of Fellows and new members coming in, and existing members. Our membership has been increasing. In fact, over the last two years, we've had a 40% improvement in our giving, numbers of donors and total gifting. So, I'm very proud of the fact that we're independent and we do fundraise our own money.

Filza Walters:

Mike, I'm so glad that you said that. I was trying to think of how I could put this package of fellow together or something that's sort of easy to explain to somebody. So, you're kind of looking for that elevator pitch when someone asks you, "Wow, you're an ASHRAE Fellow. Tell me about that. What does that mean? What do fellows do?"

And I thought, if I can kind of figure out how I can use that word, F-E-L-L-O-W, to express each of the things that we sort of stand for and the kinds of things we do, I think "F" is certainly financial, and you touched on that. We are certainly able to raise our funds, and we try to do our judicious job of being able to put those funds back into membership. But I think "fellow" also, and the "F" stands for that fellowship because I think, as fun as it is to be on this podcast with the two of you, sitting in those meetings, as I look around the room, there's my friends, some I would categorize as my ASHRAE dads and moms, those that have been around for a long time that have been my allies, my mentors, and then other fellow ASHRAE members that I've served on committees with, et cetera.

So, I think that "F" certainly has the financial and the fellowship embedded, and you certainly have touched on that. The "E," for me, is really an elevation in grade. To do that, I feel that an individual has to, the burden of proof is on the individual, but you certainly want to talk about the exemplary technical contributions that you've been able to make in the industry. I'll go to "L" next. So, certainly the level of grade, and that's the membership grade level. It's, again, as I said, an elevation.

And then next, "L" for me would be lifelong learning. I think sometimes individuals believe that once you receive that or you achieve that level of fellow, that's the pinnacle of your career. But I can certainly speak for myself, I am still learning. And not only learning, but also learning to be able to give back so that others can learn. I think one of the great examples there is the Ray Clark Lecture series that we have been able to start as a joint effort with student activities and the YEA committee to be able to highlight and allow some of our fellow members to speak about their exemplary careers and to be able to reflect back on the great things that they've done for our industry.

The "O" I guess would be sort of that ongoing service. Again, reaching the level of fellow does not mean that your work with ASHRAE or in the industry ends there. It's sort of ongoing service. We're all volunteers in ASHRAE. So, I think by being a fellow, it just allows each of us one additional platform in which we can give back. And I'll just give you an example for that one for myself, just this past week, we launched the very first Women in ASHRAE Leadership Symposium. And as an opportunity through that symposium, I was able to work with a group of amazing young ladies, and we formulated two new ASHRAE awards. They were called Empowerment Awards, one for a rising star, 35 or younger, and another for a student member, to really ask them, and to pose to them and ask them how and, "What is it that we can all do to encourage more women and to our, again, workforce development" so, coming right back to the presidential theme for this year. So again, that was my way of sort of using that platform for my ongoing service to ASHRAE. The "W" can stand for "Who," the "What," Whom Do We Mentor?" And also, I think a little bit about "What," and I'm going to punt this either to you, Tom, or to you, Mike, but sort of, "What's next?" I feel like, as an ASHRAE Fellow, we're always looking to see where is ASHRAE going? Where is that industry going? And sort of having that far-reaching, 50,000 viewpoint on what needs to happen next.

And I'll give one example and then I'm going to punt it over to you all. But I remember one of the fellows mentioning to me that YEA, when it was starting out, was actually an idea that percolated through the College of Fellows. It took a little while for the membership to sort of take hold of that, and they were reflecting on the fact that that's one of our fastest growing demographics now in our membership for ASHRAE. So, what's next?

Tom Lawrence:

Thank you. I'm going to summarize. You did an awesome job of describing the overall mission of the College of Fellows, but kind of summarize those key points of the mission statement from the College of Fellows is transferring technology. Okay, we do that, and we help mentoring students and younger members, sharing knowledge with the grassroots organizations, chapters. That's one thing maybe you didn't bring up, but I think that's something as part of, we, the College of Fellows, should do. Get involved with the local chapters and give presentations or just reach out to the people there.

Then, communicating ASHRAE's recommended practices within the industry, and supporting ASHRAE governance within technical committees, et cetera, on that point. Those are all part of what we want to do. Besides, now we've defined what the College of Fellows is, how we organize within ASHRAE as a society. The College of Fellows reports to the Members Council. We used to report to the Board of Directors, but because of the overall organizational change and thinking about how the Board of Directors are not directly involved with that, we are really part of the members. ASHRAE Fellow members are great. So, it really does evolve within the Members Council.

So, that's important, how we do it. We report to the Members Council, and we are really basically there to help support the members. Mike, do you want to add anything on that?

Mike Pouchak:

I would just build on that. The College of Fellows is encouraging and assisting ASHRAE's technical image. They're ambassadors, they transfer this ASHRAE knowledge, they mentor students, they're increasing awareness, they're sharing the knowledge, all those things. The beauty of College of Fellows is it's really open. And of course, there are partnerships with the technical committees, but just really open, wide topics, refrigerants, energy storage solutions, climate change-resistant infrastructure, ASHRAE on the right path, and a debate on decarbonization.

Filza Walters:

Let me see if I can ask a question here. I imagine that individuals, again, our membership that are listening to this podcast, will want to know. It's great to hear what the College of Fellows or what the fellow grade is and the things that we're doing to give back, but what is the process to actually become a Fellow?

Tom Lawrence:

By now, hopefully people are saying, "Oh, cool, I'd like to be part of this." So really, to become an ASHRAE Fellow, there's a process you go through. The first thing, you need to be nominated by someone else, another ASHRAE member. You have to have a minimum eligibility. First, you need to be a full member of ASHRAE and have that for 10 years. I know there's been one person that I actually nominated in the past. They wanted to do that and they were probably qualified, but they had not been a full member. They didn't go back and look at their membership status. They did not go through the process to become a full member.

So, it wasn't having that for 10 years. And then the really big part of this process is filling out the application and the resume, for want of a better word, for doing this and make a substantial contribution to the field of HVAC&R. Becoming an ASHRAE Fellow is not something like recognizing, "Okay, I'm within the ASHRAE society, I've been on this TC, I've been on this committee, yada, yada, yada." No. Really, to be named an ASHRAE Fellow, you have to be recognized as having a distinct contribution to the industry in general, through innovation, inventions, research, teaching, design, whatever.

So, a professor doing the teaching, involved with their students, that's one thing. You could do design work, to have something innovative in that aspect of that research contributions. Others that somehow contributed to the HVAC&R industry to be recognized as being distinctive above your peers, it's not a competition, but yes, it is a recognition that you have that distinction going about this.

So, you go through that-you need to have at least one other ASHRAE Fellow member signing off and working with you on the preparation of this ASHRAE Fellow application process. So that takes a while, and it is a process you go through. You need to emphasize your distinct and lasting contributions, and realizing this is going to go into the membership account or the people who review this. They're going to look for something that is very distinctive in terms of what the contributions are.

You need to lay those out and think about it yourself. Is this really distinctive, or is this just normal doing the job process? There's a difference between having a good project, okay, we did well, the client was happy, we got paid, everything went well. But is that distinctive? I think that's really one of the most important parts of how we go through and look at what we do to become an ASHRAE Fellow.

Mike Pouchak:

Tom, I'll build on what you just said. A key component is attaining distinction and making substantial contributions. So, one or more accomplishments, work in education, engineering design, invention, engineering executive on projects of unusual or important scope, other activities leading to the advancement of the arts and sciences. This is a high bar. Let me just quickly, the form actually calls out list one to three key projects that have a major, notable, unique, and positive impact in the advancement of arts or science of HVAC&R.

Nominate includes a mandatory 100-word or less description of the contributions having substantial impact on the advancement of the arts and sciences of HVAC. Another interesting thing is, the significant contribution is not necessarily associated with a physical project. It could be an idea, and of course, it requires verification from professionals. Some interesting items not considered on the nomination is service to ASHRAE. If this is the primary reason for nomination, there are other awards, there's the Distinguished or Exceptional Service Award.

Quantity of work. Just doing large amounts of work does not qualify you to be a Fellow. Even if you've done many research projects or written many papers, it's really about quality over quantity. And length of membership, 10 years or 50 years, really doesn't matter. It is a 10-year minimum full-grade member to advance. But it's really not about length, or even participation in ASHRAE activities, chapters, or even the conferences. It's really about service.

Filza Walters:

I'm so glad you said that. I recall when I was in the process of, well, A, I think many of us, I'm going to step back a minute here, I think many of us and some of our listeners, may not feel that they've achieved that distinction or they've had substantial contributions. What I'd like to say is that, I think, I would encourage you to speak to a colleague, speak to another ASHRAE Fellow, and go through some of the things that you have done in your career and see what they have to say.

And I say that because, oftentimes, you yourself may not recognize how meaningful and what a distinctive career you've had, but others certainly will recognize that. Oftentimes, others will say to you, "Have you considered applying?" Or, "Gosh, I would like to sponsor you for that." And I guess I would challenge those that are listening to not just say "No" immediately. Take a little time to actually do that inventory and see what you've done.

I certainly took time to not only look at the application, but I think I dissected every word. And I was thinking about what is my burden of proof for those items. And the other thing that I think is important to share here is that some of our chapters we found have been really great about assisting their members. Let me give you an example from our local chapter here. On a monthly basis, there's a little conference, a Zoom meeting, that a few individuals that are considering applying for various honors and awards will get together and sort of help each other out.

They'll say, "Well, is there a different way for you to say this?" or "Tell me a little bit more about what you did and how did that change, as you said earlier, a process?" or "How was it notable? How was it distinctive?" So, certainly lean on your network in ASHRAE, and certainly your Fellows, to help you through that. I think another thing that's important to note is that the selection of a Fellow does not occur by the ExCom Committee of the College of Fellows. It certainly doesn't occur by a vote of 500-plus Fellows, but it is certainly on the auspices of the Honors and Awards Committee.

Again, I know that they have their work cut out for them, and they take that work very, very seriously.

Tom Lawrence:

I want to build on that. Thanks, Filza and Mike, you did a great job of building on that point. I think I'll boil it down to think about. If you want to become a Fellow and you're applying for that, first, you need to come up with your three significant contributions and then boil it down to an abstract, for want of a better way to-100 words that best describe that. Because that is what the people that are going to review the application, that's all they are going to see. They're going to look at that. So, you want to work on that and make sure that it is well put.

You describe the significant contributions, and I would encourage you to get other people to look at that and just review it. This is not like a resume that you'd give for a new job application. You're filling out something that is fairly significant in your overall career. And so, that is something that you need to spend some time to wordsmith and have it exactly worded well. Make sure you point out what the significant contribution is. That is what other people are going to be looking at.

Filza Walters:

And Tom, can you give us a bit of a better idea of the timeframe? From the moment of coming up with the decision that "Yes, I'm going to apply," and then applying the decision, finding out the decision, and then receiving the award. I'll pass it over to either Tom or Mike.

Tom Lawrence:

Sure. The process, of course, deciding to do this, that can happen anytime. Really, the application process goes in, they have to be submitted, and I think it's by May 1st, if I remember right, is the application date for each year. So, the application and the approval of the College of Fellows is an annual basis, a new set of incoming College of Fellows members' grade every year. That is submitted, so I would encourage, think about people maybe spring-summer timeframe, to begin to think about that, prepare what you want to do. Reach out to another fellow and other ASHRAE members to kind of have, "Would you support my application?"

Begin to put that together, and have that submitted by May 1st, which means you need to have a draft or two beforehand to go through review. Get that in and make sure it's put in the time. Then, cross your fingers and go from there. But then the follow-up of that afterwards. If you get accepted, cool. If you don't, they can give you some feedback on what the application was about. Was it missing something? Did it not have a distinctive enough feature?

I've nominated five or six people to become College of Fellows members, and all have been accepted except for one. When that person did not, we reached out and got some feedback on what their application might have been missing, in terms of what the people that reviewing that point. So, it's a big deal. It's a big process to go through and do, but it's important that you reach out to others and make sure you emphasize the significant contributions you've made. That's what's being looked at.

Mike Pouchak:

I do want to mention that there are tremendous resources, of course, on the ashrae.org webpage. If you go under Communities, there's a College of Fellows subdirectory that has really good information about the College of Fellows. It talks about the College of Fellows Travel Award, but there's a good section, Becoming a Fellow. It has a link to the Fellow Nomination guides and forms, which is very helpful.

One of the important things you'll see for nomination is having a fellow to recommend you. So, I'd encourage you to connect with a fellow. You will need a fellow to make the application. Other information on that College of Fellows site including meeting information, we have information on activities that we participate in. There's a place to donate. We are accepting donations every year, and that's a solicitation.

Also, if you become very familiar with the application process, there's quite a bit of investigation and probably guidance you'll need. So, again, you'll want to reach out to someone who's currently a fellow and someone who understands the process. The award goes through the Honors and Awards Committee, which actually reviews the applications. If the award is accepted, it's announced and awarded at the Winter Conference. If the award is not accepted, you are not prohibited, you can apply again.

Probably the best advice is to have someone who has been through the process and is willing to sponsor you and probably guide you through some of the areas. You probably want feedback. Your application should not be done in a vacuum. You should get feedback from other people when you apply.

Tom Lawrence:

We talked about the distinction, if you wish, between being a member of the fellow grade and the College of Fellows. Right now, if you go through and if you're named an ASHRAE Fellow, you are automatically part of the College of Fellows. So, College of Fellows is this group of 500-plus now individuals who have been named a fellow grade within ASHRAE.

What the College does is, as we've talked about a little bit earlier on in this podcast, things that we do, seminars, contributions, and mentoring. That is what we do going about this. We also meet on a regular basis at both the annual and the winter meetings. We have occasional online meetings for all the College of Fellows to talk about things that are going on. So, we're trying to create this as a community work with this. It's not a technical committee, it's not a formal society committee that meets and does a business of doing a standard or writing for something like that. But it is a group of people that are helping in their later stages of their careers who have been recognized as a contributor to the industry, to help, to give back. How can you give back? I think that's a big part of what we want to do.

Mike Pouchak:

So, Tom, I'm just going to build on some of the core mission of the College of Fellows in mentoring. I always had a close connection with YEA, but just these last several years, there's been a concerted effort to advance our mentoring program. The new mentoring pilot program started last year. It started, in fact, by the College of Fellows leadership across all membership grades. We wanted to serve people young, early in their careers, people mid-career, people late-career College of Fellows.

Because of their funding, they approved $2,000 in materials that were distributed, and set up a unique categorization. We have a category for mentees, people receiving the mentoring, and mentors, the people providing the mentorship. The mentors do not need to be in person, they can be virtual, they can be anywhere. In fact, to help coordinate and arrange the connection between mentees and mentors, we set up a new title, as Dave Branson recommended, the College of Fellows Ambassador. It's really a fantastic program. It's just getting started out I'm really excited to be part of that.

Some of the other services the ASHRAE College of Fellows has advanced is really step up the communication through the use of internal tools. We use a tool inside Basecamp. Basecamp has really provided scheduling, institutional knowledge, information storage. Fantastic for multidisciplinary, geographically dispersed members. It worked really well.

In fact, because of this, we were able to improve participation and communication by a factor of eight times. We went from 70 participants up to 540 Fellows participating. Fantastic initiative. We asked for an opinion. In fact, it was on this very subject of membership as an ASHRAE Fellow, and asked members to weigh in. We were overwhelmed with the amount of comments. It was fantastic, very thoughtful. It was one-sided. Although there was a significant skewing towards one view, but both sides were represented, excellent discussion across wide, the value of the power of the College of Fellows discussion, having good communication.

Another area that has been very successful is we've now hosted a lending resource library. We have unique lending resources. As you know, many people in the College Fellows are very gifted. We have many, many book authors, and we've dedicated, and actually have our own physical lending library for College of Fellows members. It's worked very well.

Some of the other programs and some of the power of the College of Fellows, the Ray Clark Lecture Series. I'll just touch on that again. Ray was sitting at the table, he says, "I can't help but look around at all the talent that are sitting at this table. Is there any way we could share it?" So that worked out really well. We had a pilot program demonstrated on February 14th, 2024, and that's going to be continued.

Filza Walters:

Excellent, Mike. It's great to hear about all the activities that the College of Fellows is doing because I know we get a lot of questions with, "What is the Travel Award? How can I apply for it? And how can I have a more seasoned ASHRAE mentor?" Those are great. And thank you for touching on the organization of the College of Fellows as well.

I think in a conversation we had not too long ago, I had mentioned to you that when I was first elevated to the College of Fellows, I did not attend the College of Fellows meeting at the annual meeting. And when I was asked later, "Oh, I didn't see you there," I said, "Well, I didn't know I was invited, or I didn't know I was allowed to attend." I'm glad you explained that. Once you have the grade of Fellow, you are welcome to come to those College of Fellows meetings. I would encourage anyone out there that's listening to this podcast that has not had a chance to attend one of those College of Fellows meetings to please come. I think you'll just be pleasantly surprised not only by the agenda and the things we cover but, more importantly, with the faces that you'll see in and around that room.

Tom Lawrence:

Yeah, I'd like to build on that. As we look at the history and how the College of Fellows has been organized and functioning, we went through a painful time in the last four years called The Pandemic. That really changed and influenced a lot of how we do and how a lot of things within society works, both ASHRAE society at that point.

But since that time, I think we've regrouped and as we were reforming and becoming more structured, I mean I congratulate Mike on doing a lot of initiatives of getting the ASHRAE College of Fellows become a functional environment. We are intending on having a survey of the College of Fellow members to going out here later on this fall, date ourselves by this podcast. But that's the plan, and we will follow up from that one. We use that as information because we want to get some feedback from fellow members of, "Okay, here's what we're doing. This is good stuff. What else should we do? Or do you agree with that or should we do something different?" I think that's the purpose of what this survey is going to go about.

Filza Walters:

Great. And Mike, quick question for you. You had mentioned sort of that 500 number. So, how have we been able to keep track of all of the fellows? And again, this grade has been around for a long time, so we certainly have those that are again, living fellows that we know of, but there's others that have passed on. So how do the College of Fellows keep track of all of that?

Mike Pouchak:

That's a very interesting question. In fact, it took a significant amount of work, but it turns out there are just fantastic records that we had. The very first College of Fellows meeting, there were actually some early contributors. Mr. Kirkwood had kept excellent records. We have records back to 1999 through ASHRAE staff and collection. We keep an internal list on our Basecamp site, going through the spreadsheets and then double-checking it against known rosters. There's never been a public or published roster for security reasons, so adds a little bit of challenge.

But we came up with the 536 active members. Again, it's not always easy because there are people that pass on and they don't necessarily send an email or there's not necessarily contributions. But through the steady team effort, we've had come up with this, 536 is the current members on our internal roster, and then Complete Historical Fellows, which are published on the Honors and Award Reference manual, this 1,012. And there are some very famous Fellows that we've had through the years and perhaps, Filza, you could identify some of those.

Filza Walters:

Oh, Mike, I think you would be better at that than me.

Tom Lawrence:

Most of the ASHRAE presidents over the years have been ASHRAE Fellows, you would expect that. And it's interesting, Mike, that you'd note that, think about the ratio, we have basically, 530 odd members right now, but the total number of ASHRAE Fellows is actually twice that over the years, in the past historical. I guess that's just part of the recognition of the longevity of the ASHRAE as an overall society, in general.

Filza Walters:

Certainly, and I'm glad you said that, Tom. So, just as part of the ExCom for the College of Fellows, just going through the list of all of our members, we know that we have about 536 active members. Historically speaking, that's probably into thousands. And as we look at that from sort of a percentage standpoint, some organizations, ASCE, ASME and others have a higher percentage of members that are elevated to their fellow status. For ASHRAE, I believe we're at approximately the one percentage.

Tom Lawrence:

Or a little less.

Filza Walters:

Or a bit less, correct. When we look at the 50,000 members or so. And then let me talk a little bit about the demographics, and maybe you can help me out here too, Tom and Mike. From my calculations, I think we have about 6% of the members that are ASHRAE members. We have about 6% or so, maybe a little higher that might be female ASHRAE members. So certainly, the ASHRAE female College of Fellows are sort of at the 0.06%. And so, as we look at going forward, any thoughts on how we can sort of help to get the word out about this level for ASHRAE and to encourage others that are certainly worthy of following in the footsteps of, as you said, some of the great presidential members and so many of the others that we've known? And any thoughts on that?

Tom Lawrence:

I would say, part of it is recognition. I'm speaking for myself as an ASHRAE member over the years. The idea of fellow was not really, for want of a better word, "advertised." We didn't think of that as being a fellow. They weren't visible. They were not a significant contributor to the society. They were invisible in the sense that they were a member grade and that's all they did. And I think that's what we're trying to do with this podcast. And some of the things within the fellow leadership is trying to push this forward and say, "This is important and here's the process."

And I think maybe some of it is the process for actually submitting an application for being nominated as a fellow, a lack of understanding of the process of how you go about this. So Filza, we described your local chapter of having workshops, for want of a better word, of how to do this. I think I would encourage others to do the same.

If you're a current College of Fellow member, work with your local chapter. Talk to the people within there. Find two or three or four or five people that you can help mentor and help them become a fellow. This is something that, it kind of sounds funny in the sense of we, on the membership and others to help push others become fellows. But I think that part has not been done very well within ASHRAE as compared to other society, ASME, that I'm involved with and others. They do a better job of pushing their members forward to become a fellow within their specific organization.

Mike Pouchak:

So if I could build on that, there's just been a tremendous example of pioneers, fantastic leaders. In fact, Janice Means just wrote two really good articles in the ASHRAE Journal. One was on David Nelson Crosthwait. He was the first African-American man inducted into the ASHRAE College of Fellows, a mechanical engineer awarded 39 US and 80 international HVAC patents. This was in the November 2023 ASHRAE Journal. Just a fantastic leader in the industry deserving of recognition. Just another example of heroes or people you can look up to. Some people look up to sports people, heroes. They look to music stars or rock stars. You can look at David Nelson Crosthwait and just look at just the fantastic contributions.

The first HVAC ASHRAE woman was Eunice Newton Foote, discovery of CO2 in relation to greenhouse gases. Just another great contributor. There was a recent obituary of Lois Graham. Lois Graham was, and she's in the Wikipedia, was credited for her work, recruiting, counseling young women and young women in science. She has a Ph.D. from Illinois Institute of Technology, was in fact the first woman to earn a mechanical engineering Ph.D. in the United States. She taught for nearly 40 years at Illinois Institute of Technology, Mechanical Material and Aerospace Engineering program. So just fantastic role models. This is an opportunity to reach out and to show there's pioneers and people who've contributed ahead of us.

Filza Walters:

Great stuff. And as I look at the list of the fellows, I'm struck by really the depth and breadth of not only knowledge, but contributions and also just the global reach that our fellows represent and really every walk of life, as you've mentioned. And it truly is just an honor to be a fellow.

I'll tell you something I heard from a presidential member, they'll remain unnamed, but they mentioned to me that they said that my ultimate goal in ASHRAE life was to attain the level of fellow for membership. Even more so than being a president of ASHRAE. They said to me, that was the pinnacle of my ASHRAE career to be named a fellow. And I thought that that sort of spoke volumes. It certainly is. It's an honor. And with it, most roles, there's a sense of responsibility. And I think part of our responsibility is to reach out to others that we feel have had exemplary careers and certainly should consider because sometimes the individual doesn't really recognize what they have done. But I think for each of us to be able to reach out to our Fellow members.

Tom Lawrence:

Yeah, that's a great way to kind of sum up, Filza. And then I think hopefully, people have been able to use this podcast as, one, to find out what is an ASHRAE Fellow, what we do. And then, what's the process or how can I apply to that? I want to be part of that. It's not just a recognition of your check off something on your resume. That's important. We all have those needs. But also, how can I take this and move it on to the next level? How can I contribute to the society, ASHRAE society and society, in general, within the industry. Build on what I've done in the past.

So we've talked about on this podcast of what the College of Fellows is. Why do we want to do it? The process and also some of the ways that we actually contribute to that point.

Mike Pouchak:

The College of Fellows has an obligation and skills to advance workforce development. They're interested and committed to attracting, getting good people in the industry and developing them. So, this type of discussion on the workforce really fits in well with the ASHRAE College of Fellows. And this really is part of the reason I get really excited about the ASHRAE College of Fellows.

Filza Walters:

Well, gentlemen, I think preparation, retention, and elevation, we hit that nail on the head. And thank you so much. It's been just so fun chatting with you this afternoon, and I hope that our listeners will find value and some of the nuggets that they'll be able to take away. Tom, thank you for joining us. Mike, thank you for joining us.

Mike Pouchak:

Thank you.

Tom Lawrence:

All right, thanks.

ASHRAE Journal:

The ASHRAE Journal podcast team is editor, Drew Champlin; managing editor, Kelly Barazza; producer and assistant editor, Alison Hambrick; assistant editor, Mary Sims; 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.