ASHRAE Journal - October 2020 - HR24

Q&A
What is the ASHRAE Foundation?

Q&A with Jim Fields, Chair of the ASHRAE Foundation Board of Trustees

Supporters of ASHRAE may have heard of the ASHRAE
Foundation, but how much do you really know about this
organization? Chair of the ASHRAE Foundation Board of
Trustees, Jim Fields, answers some common questions and
shares some of his experience with the Foundation.

Q: Why was it important for ASHRAE to create a
Foundation?
A: It was very important for ASHRAE to create a foundation
that provides a permanent ﬁnancial resource to support
ASHRAE into the future. In the late 1980's ASHRAE did
not have a program to support and manage endowed gifts.
Several members and companies expressed interest in
establishing endowments for scholarships and research.
We also needed the ability to support the ASHRAE Learning
Institute, Distinguished Lecturer Program, and other approved
program requests from the ASHRAE BOD.

Special Appreciation

It was a true honor for the ASHRAE Foundation Executive
Committee to show our tremendous appreciation to ASHRAE
Presidential Member Gordon V.R. Holness and his wife, Audrey
for their very generous contribution of $100,000 to establish
the Gordon V.R. Holness Engineering Technology Scholarship.
This is the second ASHRAE Scholarship that Gordon and
Audrey have established to help support college students
aspiring to become engineers. Also, Gordon and Audrey just
contributed an additional $100,000 to each of their existing
scholarships. They have now given a total of $400,000 for two
ASHRAE Society Scholarships, and each scholarship will
award $10,000 annually. Thank you to these wonderful
supporters of ASHRAE!

Q: When was the ASHRAE Foundation established?
A: In 1993 Damon Gowan was asked to lead an effort to
establish the ASHRAE Foundation. Working with several
ASHRAE leaders and Industry leaders, the ASHRAE Foundation was established in 1994.
Q: How many members are there on the Foundation
Board of Trustees?
A: Currently there are 24 voting members. This includes four
Corporate positions and 20 Individual member positions.
There is one Honorary member, a non-voting position.
Q: How does the ASHRAE Foundation operate to
beneﬁt Society?
A: The ASHRAE Foundation manages endowed funds to
beneﬁt ASHRAE. Once an endowment is established with
the Foundation, that principal is never spent. This ensures
the long-term future of the Foundation and this endowment.
We only use the earnings from our investments to support
ASHRAE's programs. The principal will always be protected.
This allows ASHRAE to ﬂourish and advance in areas such
as continuing education with ASHRAE Learning Institute
(ALI), supporting ASHRAE Research with $162,560 annual
endowed contributions (as of June 2020), Honors and
Awards, and expediting Standards. The Foundation also
awards 69 Scholarships annually. Most recently, the Foundation funded the creation of a certiﬁcation study guide. We are
also open for requests from any area of ASHRAE seeking to
establish other endowments or needing funding to support the
mission of ASHRAE.

From left to right; Jim Fields, Bill Harrison, Gordon V.R. Holness,
Tom Watson, Audrey Holness, Don Colliver.

Q: What has been your experience serving as
Foundation Chair?
A: It has been so rewarding for me to see the growth in the
number of scholarships and the added research funding from
working with research endowments during my time as Chair.
I have also been very pleased by our outreach to Chapters
and having the opportunity to work with donors.
I also feel blessed to have worked with so many exceptional
people. Many I have come to love and respect: the late
Damon Gowan, a great mentor; Bill Harrison, friend and
advisor; Jim Wolf, who has great questions; Don Colliver, the
patient teacher; Michael Hart (Òget Ôer done!Ó), Tom Watson;
Dan Pettway; and staff member Margaret Smith as my right
hand. These people and many others have made this experience super rewarding for me.

ASHRAE Foundation funding has been critical in making possible signiﬁcant ASHRAE eLearning course updates
and improvements, creating an interactive study guide for the HVAC Designer (CHD) certiﬁcation, and supporting
the educational outreach of ASHRAE's Global Training Center in Dubai. All these eﬀorts are important parts of
achieving our mission in publications and education."

- K. William Dean, P. Eng. Society Vice President, Publishing and Education Council Chair
HR 24

2019-20 ASHRAE Investor Honor Roll

October 2020

ASHRAE Journal - October 2020

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