It Pays To Attend Your Monthly ASHRAE
Meeting
By Dennis Altstaetter

I joined ASHRAE in May of 1999 and was
active in the National Capital Chapter of ASHRAE until my family
and I moved to Wilmington, NC in June of 2005. In November of
2007, when my employer transferred me to the Raleigh area, I
started attending the monthly meetings of the Triangle ASHRAE
chapter held on the campus of NCSU. At this time I felt very
secure in my job and planned on one day retiring from the
company I had been with for over 10 years. After all, I was
working for a very large manufacturer of HVAC equipment. After
going through a difficult winter and experiencing a slow
economy, my former employer went through a major work force
reduction and I was laid off on March 23, 2009.
I started sending out resumes
right away and did not receive any real leads. I had decided
that since things were so slow it might take several months to
find a new job. The next ASHRAE meeting came around and was to
be held on Wednesday, April 8th. I was trying to reduce our
nonessential expenses so that we could conserve our money and
had talked myself out of going to the April meeting. My wife had
other ideas and she urged me to attend the upcoming meeting. I
printed several copies of my resume and got into my car. The
current chapter president was Mr. Kent Woodard and the topic
that night was absorption chillers. There was a small crowd
there that night so after going through the food line I sat down
at a table with someone that I had never seen before at one of
our meetings. We started talking and he asked who I worked for
so I pulled out a resume and told him that I had just been laid
off. This person was Darren Shipman, Vice President of Adams
Companies, Inc. His boss, Mr. Chris Adams, had told him to
attend this meeting and find someone to hire for the Raleigh
area. They had just acquired North Carolina for several of their
commercial heating and cooling products and they needed someone
to call on mechanical design engineers. I told him that was
exactly what I had been doing with my former employer and we
continued to talk during dinner.
After the meeting was over, we went out in the vestibule
and I had my first real job interview since I had been laid off.
Things went well and we talked for about one hour. The next day,
Thursday, Darren checked with several of my references and
received good reports from everyone. That afternoon I received a
call from Darren Shipman and Chris Adams. After speaking with
them for awhile, they made me an offer to work with them. On the
following day, Friday I called them and accepted their offer. I
was unemployed for less than 3 weeks and now had a new career
with a growing company.
My future is now brighter than ever and I am still working
with design engineers, assisting them with my products. I know
that I have heard through the years that it pays to belong to
ASHRAE. I would like to take it one step further. It pays to
regularly attend your local ASHRAE meetings. No one knows what
their future holds and there is no place like your local chapter
meetings and events to network and meet people.
Thanks Triangle ASHRAE Chapter and all its officers for
having regular monthly meetings.
Pictured above (L-R): Kent Woodard (2008 - 2009 Triangle
Chapter President), Dennis Altstaetter.
I thought this article was worth repeating to show the
benefits of being an ASHRAE member. Thank you Dennis for letting
us reprint your article.
See you at the meeting…
Richard
Rosner, P.E.
Membership Chairman