The President's Message

March Madness is just around the corner. Hope your team is not on the bubble. It’s fun to see all 3 local teams doing well.

Another great turnout for our February meeting. We had over 150 people RSVP and it appeared that many showed up. It was good to see all the Past President’s show up that could and a big thanks to all of them for their past service. Dan Kelley gave his presentation on “IBC Code Changes for Mechanical Engineers”. It was an interesting and lighthearted look at seismic and wind load requirements of the UBC and what can happen if those are not followed.

This month’s meeting will be a tour of the new energy center and Mid-America Heart Institute hospital expansion at St. Luke’s Hospital – Kansas City Wornall Campus. The tour will include the energy center including the chilled water and boiler plants, campus wide normal and emergency power distribution centers and the emergency engine generator systems. It will also include touring the adjacent new MAHI Tower and hospital expansion currently under construction; including a large data center, large kitchen, 7th floor mechanical floor, utility tunnels and 5th floor patient room floor. As noted earlier, these spaces are under construction, which does not allow us to see the finished product but will allow us, and especially the students, to see the infrastructure for a facility like this. One of the major and most difficult aspects of the project was to build the new energy center, then build enough of the shell of the tower to route the piping and services through, tear half of the existing energy center down while building new tunnels in the demoed half to tie into the existing service tunnels without interrupting any of the current hospital services, demo the other half of the existing energy center and then build over the demo’d energy center. This happens to be one of my projects, which can be good or bad. Bad because it is a perfect opportunity to criticize my designs, but constructive criticism can be good. Please see additional information in this Breeze for details. A separate e-mail will be sent later in the month for final details and directions.

This month’s meeting is also student night and the student chapters will be giving an update on their activities. Please sponsor a student or 2 with a donation of $10 per student.

Board of Governors nominations are also due. I have had a few nominations but can always use a few more. We will elect the Board positions at the April meeting.

Jeff Ewens has finalized the design for the Kansas City chapter logo and due to its inspiration from the Kansas City, Missouri logo, it is currently in the hands of their legal department to insure legality. As soon as that is finished we will use it for the Breeze headings, letterheads and other promotional uses.

The 2nd Annual Putt Putt Golf/Pub Crawl (now the 1st Annual KC Pub Crawl Olympics) is scheduled for March 4th which is just around the corner. Please sign up if you have not already as this will be a fun(ny) event and I am sure the foursomes will fill up soon.

This year’s technical seminar program will be in conjunction with BOMA’s (one or our BEP partners) Real Estate Expo on May 13th at Union Station. We are very excited about continuing this educational seminar program and hosting that as part of the Real Estate Expo. We have most of our speakers lined up and are making final preparations. Please see the update in this issue.

Please do not hesitate to contact me at sbraden@wlc-kc.net with any questions or concerns you might have or any suggestions to make your association with ASHRAE and our chapter more productive.

Hope the weather is nice and see you at the tour. Have a great (and safe) St. Patty’s Day!

Stuart Braden
Chapter President

Upcoming Events

4/5/2010

11:30 AM - 1:00 PM

Kansas City ASHRAE Meeting

Holiday Inn

Not Getting The Chapter Newsletter?

Do you know a local ASHRAE member that is not getting a copy of the KC Chapter newsletter? Has the member recently graduated, changed companies, or changed e-mail addresses? Help them out and give them the following information. If the “lost member” is a paid ASHRAE member, they should be on the chapter roster and email lists that are maintained by Jerri Brewer. Jerri keeps the mailing list updated for all emails for the local chapter. The “lost member” should contact Jerri at jerri.brewer@hei-eng.com to update their contact information. This is the only way to get all of the chapter newsletters, including emails and announcements concerning ASHRAE that are sent out by Jerri to the Kansas City Chapter members throughout the year. But, you are not done yet! Go to the ASHRAE national website and update all information at the national level. Members will not receive the ASHRAE Journal, renewal notices, and other important information if their contact information is not correct at the national level. Go to the ASHRAE website and update member information at the link below. You will need your membership number and PIN from your membership card to login.

Recent graduates