HPAC On The Air

The signs are everywhere. Artificial intelligence will have its biggest impact yet on our industry in 2025. This month's episode of HPAC: Editor's Notes looks at compelling new data on the growing use of AI in engineering, design and construction. Are you ready?

'HPAC On The Air' welcomes veteran engineers Jennifer Leach and Keith Hammelman, who will both be presenting this June at the 2025 ASHRAE Annual Conference in Phoenix. Their topic? Next-generation engineering talent. "How to Get'em; How to Keep'em." 

The economic news has been fast and furious this spring and more than a few headlines are in conflict. Here, we briefly review the latest from Fed Chair Jerome Powell and other industry voices as we try get a better picture of the road ahead.

At this time of extraordinary economic disruption, 'HPAC On The Air' welcomes back longtime industry analyst Richard Branch for his take on how design and construction firms can manage best in the face of a potential recession.

In March, the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to roll back more than 30 regulations and de-emphasize the monitoring of greenhouse gas emissions. Since our industry is already heavily invested in decarbonization, we spoke with a number of key engineering leaders to gauge their reaction.

HPAC 'On The Air' welcomes back cybersecurity expert Nick Espinosa to discuss the latest onslaught of technology threats and how engineers and contractors can best protect themselves in this constantly changing environment.

In this extraordinarily turbulent month, especially regarding tariffs and their tangible effect on our industry, we take a look at what industry economists are seeing in the latest data...

The new board chair of the American Boiler Manufacturers Association is not only the first-ever woman to fill that role, she is also the first non-U.S. member to lead the 137-year-old trade group. Here, Simoneau joins us to discuss the unique perspective and infectious energy that will drive her leadership for the next two years. 

With the U.S. now out of the Paris Agreement once again, questions are swirling around the state of our industry's sustainability efforts. USGBC Senior Policy Counsel Elizabeth Beardsley joins us to discuss that, as well as the recent COP29 conference in Azerbaijan. Much progress is still happening on many fronts, she says.

Infrastructure and data center projects will drive our industry this year. But new variables are mounting regarding potential disruptions to construction labor and the supply chain.

Our latest Editor's Notes looks back on a trying election cycle that has redoubled this industry's determination to make 2025 a resilient success.

HPAC On The Air this month welcomes ASHRAE's 2024-25 President, who describes how youth and new technology are enhancing the Society's global mission. 

EDITOR'S NOTES: "Firehose of solidarity?" This fall's first-ever ASHRAE Women in Leadership Symposium was truly extraordinary. Our editor-in-chief was there and explains why this meeting was so different.

Our guest this month is Bryan Hutton, the very new president of the American Society of Plumbing Engineers. A chemical engineer atop his own composites manufacturing firm, Hutton is also the first-ever African-American to lead ASPE. Listen to his refreshing and positive perspectives here.

Our latest Editor's Notes podcast explains the vintage design of our new print issue, announces some overdue changes to our Editorial Advisory Board, and takes the pre-election pulse of a very healthy U.S. economy.

This month's episode of HPAC Editor's Notes looks at the three editorials from the September 1929 issue of Heating, Piping and Air Conditioning magazine. Observations note how "technical interests stimulate business"; how Chicagoans were "amazed" to see a German zeppelin (no, not that one) sail over Lake Michigan; and how engineering schools all over the world were starting to do more scientific research.

This month, HPAC 'On The Air' welcomes back Dr. Bill Bahnfleth, ASHRAE past president, former chair of its ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force, and longtime professor of architectural engineering at Penn State University. Bahnfleth's father Donald also served as editor of HPAC Engineering throughout the 1960s, and later became ASHRAE president, himself. So there is much to unpack in this wide-ranging episode...

A thunderous brushback by a burst of nighttime tornadoes reminds our editor-in-chief of the importance of community and the inescapable fact that we are all in this together.

'HPAC On The Air' this month welcomes longtime Greenheck Fan Corp. exec Mike Wolf, PE, the 2023-24 president of the Air Movement and Control Association (AMCA) International, where he will also serve as the group's 2024-25 chairman. Now in his 39th year at Greenheck, Wolf today is the manufacturer's director of regulatory business development. He speaks with us here about a subject near and dear to him: product certification. Along the way, Wolf and host Rob McManamy also reflect on our industry's amazing evolution over the last four decades...

This month, we again revisit HPAC's first year in service to our industry with a fascinating time capsule from 95 years ago. Listen to some of our editorial commentary then on improving air quality in cities, the engineering value of journeyman input, and the need to create piping codes across the U.S. that conform with one another...

'HPAC On The Air' welcomes back the longtime Clark's Remarks columnist to talk about heat domes, environmental regulation, and how he "walks the talk" of his sustainability evangelism.

EDITOR'S NOTES: Women are playing an increasingly vital role in our industry today. Here, we take a look back on the path of that progress, in HVACR and society, over the 95 years of HPAC Engineering's existence.

This fall in Chicago, ASHRAE will hold its first-ever national symposium for Women Engineers. Event chair Nancy Kohout, P.E., joins us for a preview, as well a discussion of the unique challenges women managers still face, even as our industry ramps up next-generation recruitment...

As HPAC Engineering this month celebrates its 95th anniversary, we look back on our first words to readers in 1929, along with a guest commentary by Willis Carrier, himself. 

The National Fire Protection Association is on a mission to share its updated codes and standards as far and as wide as possible. NFPA President and CEO Jim Pauley returns to HPAC On The Air to detail the group's ambitious plan to better educate our industry on life/safety solutions via acquisitions and even a new subsidiary.

To celebrate our 95th year of publication, HPAC Engineering launches its new monthly podcast, HPAC Editor's Notes, commenting on important issues of the day, as viewed by Editor-in-Chief Rob McManamy.

Boiler manufacturers are headed for the Rockies this May. We discuss what they'll find there at ABMA's second big show for the entire boiler supply chain. Scott Lynch and Shaunica Jayson give us a preview.

The challenges facing young engineers today are more complex than ever, but our guests this month reassure us that the energy, skills, and organization are already coming together to meet them head on.

Frustrations ran high at the annual global climate summit in Dubai in December, but our guest says there were still more than a few positive takeaways for our industry. U.S. Green Building Council senior policy counsel Elizabeth Beardsley returns to give us her report... 

With last year now in the books, we chat with Dodge Construction Network's chief economist about his upbeat outlook for 2024. How did we manage to avoid that long-predicted recession? What potential roadblocks are still out there? Listen in for all the details!

The long-awaited, federally mandated switch to A2L refrigerants is now upon us, set to take effect on January 1. Jim Cika of the International Code Council (ICC) returns to HPAC On The Air to update us on the flurry of activities now under way to help our industry prepare for these major related code changes.

HPAC 'On The Air' welcomes back Ginger Scoggins, since June the new 2023-24 President of ASHRAE. A mechanical engineer, Ms. Scoggins is a principal at Engineered Designs Inc., in Cary, NC, and past chair of ASHRAE's Building Headquarters Ad Hoc Committee. She also led ASHRAE's delegation to the United Nations' COP26 Climate Change Conference in Glasgow in late 2021. She first appeared on this podcast early last year to help us recap that event. Here, Ms. Scoggins talks about ASHRAE's newly vital role on the world stage and the vital role next-generation engineers are already playing.

Our returning guest this month is Nick Espinosa, a nationally renowned cybersecurity expert, author, podcaster, TEDx speaker and a member of the Forbes Technology Council. In 2015 outside Chicago, Nick started his own consulting firm, Security Fanatics, from which he has been monitoring the broader internet, as well as the Dark Web, and consulting to a number of industries, including our own for engineering and construction. We last spoke to Nick on this podcast in early 2021 and he hosted a webinar for HPAC readers on cybersecurity later that year. He rejoins us now for an always urgent update...

In this episode, HPAC 'On the Air' welcomes back environmental engineer Larry Clark, author of our popular Clark's Remarks sustainability column, which this summer is celebrating its 10th anniversary with HPAC Engineering. Based in South Florida, Larry is a small business owner, a longtime member of ASHRAE, and a member of our Editorial Advisory Board. He was also our first guest on this podcast more than two years ago. Here, Larry reflects on both his column and the growth of the sustainability movement over the last tumultuous decade.

In this episode, HPAC 'On the Air' welcomes Dr. Janet Stout, founder of the Special Pathogens Laboratory and an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh Swanson School of Engineering. An infectious disease microbiologist, Dr. Stout is recognized worldwide for her pioneering research in Legionella and now, after three decades, remains on a mission to End Legionnaires' disease. She updates us here on where that mission is today.

In this episode, HPAC 'On the Air' welcomes Mark Bublitz, new board president of the Air Movement and Control Association, International (AMCA). He discusses the whirlwind of regulatory changes now on the horizon for both commercial and industrial fans and takes us behind the scenes of a truly global association in an era of renewed focus on air movement technology. 

HPAC 'On the Air' this month welcomes back Scott Lynch, President and CEO of the American Boiler Manufacturers Association, based in Vienna, VA. Scott has served in that role since June of 2014. He is joined by ABMA Director of Communications Shaunica Jayson. Much is going on with the organization this spring and summer, so we asked the two of them to fill us in. 

This month's guest is Kent Peterson, the new chair of ASHRAE's Task Force on Building Decarbonization, which is now in its second year. In the wake of ASHRAE's Winter Meeting in Atlanta and the recent COP27 Climate Conference in Egypt, we discussed how the task force is now gaining momentum and leveraging the efforts of more than 100 volunteers to share the information it has gathered with every corner of the global society.

HPAC On The Air's first guest of 2023 is Nicole Bush, press officer for AHR Expo, our industry's premier annual trade show, set to jumpstart the new year next month in Atlanta. Based in Connecticut, the AHR Expo show office runs year-round, so Nicole is here to preview the big event and give us a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at how it all comes together...

Just back from Egypt, the U.S. Green Building Council's lead emissary to the latest United Nations Climate Conference, aka "COP27", fills us in on the global event's most relevant news for our industry, as well as its likely impact on broader sustainability efforts. 

We are pleased to welcome back this month our first return guest to HPAC On The Air, Dr. William Bahnfleth, P.E., former chair of ASHRAE's recently ended emergency Epidemic Task Force, and current vice chair of the society's Environmental Health Committee. He updates us on the latest pandemic-related guidance for indoor air quality (IAQ) and reflects on the state of our industry as it still strives to make both new and existing buildings healthier for their occupants. 

Our guest this month is Jim Zebrowski, P.E., new president of the American Society of Plumbing Engineers (ASPE), and a plumbing /fire protection engineer with DLR Group. Zebrowski has been an active member of ASPE for 36 years now and was elected to the top spot for a two-year term this September in Indianapolis. He spoke with us about the goals of his presidency and his views on the role of character in all that we do.

Our guest this month is Dr. Burcin Kaplanoglu, VP of Innovation at the new Oracle Industry Lab in Deerfield, IL. An avid technologist blessed with energetic curiosity, Kaplanoglu previously spent 15 years with Lendlease and holds multiple degrees in civil engineering and construction management. Today, he also serves as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University and chairs an advisory committee to the A.I. in Construction Institute at the Grainger College of Engineering, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Our guest this month, joining us from Dubai, is the newly elected 2022-2023 President of ASHRAE, Mr. Farooq Mehboob, the society's first Asian-born president. An accomplished mechanical engineer with more than 50 years of industry experience, Mr. Mehboob is the founder and owner of his own engineering firm, S. Mehboob & Co., based in Karachi, Pakistan. There, he is also a founding member and current chair of the Pakistan HVACR Society. Here, he speaks with us about the theme of his presidential year, "Securing Our Future," and the urgent necessity of international cooperation and collaboration among engineers to solve our planet's most pressing problems.

As we enter an already steamy summer, our subject this month is refrigerants, and our guest is Jim Cika, director of PMG technical resources for the International Code Council, where he serves as a subject matter expert on plumbing, mechanical, fuel gas and swimming pool and spa codes. Jim represents ICC in federal and state coalitions, task forces, committees, and councils where expertise in I-Code subjects is required. With more than 20 years of industry experience in manufacturing and construction, including time as an HVAC design engineer, he holds a mechanical engineering degree from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. Here, he previews major code changes on A2L refrigerants that will impact our industry much sooner than many may realize...

Our guest this month is Mr. Jim Pauley, President and CEO of the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), where he also chairs the NFPA Research Foundation. Prior to joining NFPA in 2014, Pauley had spent 30 years in the electric and energy industry, serving the last several of those years as a Senior Vice President at Schneider Electric. An electrical engineer by training, he has also served the industry in a number of other leadership roles, perhaps most notably as Chair of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

Our guest is Dean Saputa, an HVAC industry veteran of more than 30 years, and vice president and co-founder of UV Resources, based in Santa Clarita, CA. He helped to start that firm in 2005. Saputa also has been very active in ASHRAE, where he is a member of the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force and past chair of the group's Technical Committee 2.9 on Ultraviolet Air and Surface Treatment. He is the current chair of ASHRAE Standards Committee 185.2, which has been particularly active since the onset of the Coronavirus pandemic in early 2020. Our discussion focuses on that committee's ongoing work, which is about to involve some significant updates.

This month's guest is ASHRAE's Ginger Scoggins, who has run her own engineering firm in Cary, NC, for the last 25 years. She also recently represented ASHRAE at the UN Climate Conference in Scotland, and led the committee overseeing the building of the organization's new Net Zero headquarters outside Atlanta... all during the pandemic!

HPAC 'On The Air' welcomes two past presidents of ASHRAE, Dr. Donald Colliver of the University of Kentucky, and Thomas Phoenix, of Mechanical Contractors Inc. in Charlotte NC. Last spring, they were named as co-chairs of ASHRAE's new Task Force for Building Decarbonization (TFBD), an important new effort they will detail for us in this podcast.

Delayed by the pandemic, the American Boiler Manufacturers Association's big new show on the supply chain is finally near. ABMA's Shaunica Jayson and Webster Combustion Technology's Eric Graham explain why that's such a big deal.

Our guest today is Elizabeth Beardsley, senior policy counsel for the U.S. Green Building Council, which she represented in November at the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, or 'COP26', for short. A longtime environmental advocate, Liz holds a civil engineering degree from Stanford University and a law degree from the University of Virginia. She speaks here on key COP26 takeaways and also highlights important climate components in the new federal infrastructure funding.