K. William (Bill) Dean, P.Eng.
97 Salisbury Drive
Saskatoon, S7H 3J3
SK Canada
(306) 241 4039
Region: XI
Honorarium: NONE
plantguy24@me.com
Dean

Professional Career:

Bill began his career after graduating in Mechanical Engineering doing HVAC consulting with a Saskatoon based Mechanical Engineering firm that completed many high-profile projects. Bill worked as a junior engineer on assignments that included Veterinary Infectious Diseases Organization and the University Hospital.

The opportunity to start his own consulting engineering firm took Bill into a new and varied direction. Bill worked on small and medium sized projects ($250K to $10M) in western Canada. Bill had a wide variety of clients that included Architects, Interior Designers, Engineers, Contractors and Building Owners. Through this experience Bill became very well versed in a variety of building types, mechanical system applications and energy management approaches.

An opportunity to join a larger engineering firm presented itself in 1988 and Bill became the Chief Mechanical Engineer with a primarily Civil Engineering firm. In that role Bill was able to bring along many of his established clients as well as work on larger civil engineering projects like water treatment plants and sewage treatment plants.

Bill recognized that good engineering design was an iterative process with the lessons-learned and improvements made being applied to the next project not the last ones. In 1991 the National Research Council of Canada’s Plant Biotechnology Institute (NRC/PBI) was looking for a Facility Manager. Bill recognized that this could be the type of opportunity that he was looking for where he could live with a building and make the iterative improvements to optimize the operations of that building. The NRC/PBI hired Bill and he began to apply his experience in building design and energy efficiency to that Facility. It was quickly evident that a substantial portion of the building’s energy consumption was related to the Plant Growth Facilities located in the main campus building and the Greenhouses located at Innovation Place. Bill was able to design and implement system modification to increase the efficiency of the mechanical and electrical systems that service the laboratory building while also improving the performance of the plant growth units. During his years with NRC/PBI Bill was part of the Management team and interacted with the senior scientists and senior managers from all across Canada.

In 1999 Bill was part of an NRC/PBI team that successfully procured federal and provincial grant funding to supplement NRC capital funds to build an Industry Partnership Facility. Key features of that addition included consolidation of all of NRC’s environment growth units into a single phytotron, a future rooftop greenhouse, biotechnology labs including technology service groups (DNA Services, Mass Spec and Bioinformatics) and building systems to optimize energy consumption in a 7000 m2 expansion. Bill was engaged in the design of the building including learning best practices from leaders in the international scientific community. He traveled extensively in North America to observe best practices for laboratory facilities in both the private and public sectors. The NRC building continues to be a leader in the application of innovative solutions to laboratory facilities.

The Property Management team at NRC was reorganized in 2012 and Bill became a Regional Manager in charge of all laboratory facilities in Western Canada. This included big science sites from Astronomy to Nanotechnology. Bill attributes his ASHRAE leadership activities in preparing him for the role of motivating and supervising professionals remotely and ensuring that they communicate with their local leaders and the central management team.

Bill retired from NRC in April 2019 and continues to reside in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.

ASHRAE Participation:

Parallel to his engineering career Bill has been active locally, regionally and internationally with ASHRAE. His involvement has helped him develop an international network of industry experts in all aspects of building design, construction, commissioning, operation and management. He is a past chair of the Plant and Animal Environment Committee and has contributed to ASHRAE Handbook Chapters that deal with best practices in the design and operation of growth rooms, phytotrons and greenhouse facilities. He was a member of the Cold Climate HVAC Conference in Calgary 2012 which led to him being an author of two chapters and a review editor for the latest edition of the Cold Climate Buildings Design Guide. He chaired the committees that developed two ASHRAE Guidelines on the Commissioning of Existing Buildings, Guidelines 0.2 and 1.2. He has been a speaker at ASHRAE Annual and Winter Conferences and made presentations at Chapter meetings and Chapters Regional Conferences. After 39 years of service to ASHRAE, Bill was nominated and elected as an ASHRAE Vice-President in July 2019.

Bill has recieved the ASHRAE Regional Award of Merit, Distinguished Service Award and Exceptional Service Award.

Other Professional Organizations:

Bill is a Past member of the International Facility Management Association and was involved with the Saskatchewan Chapter of that group. He is currently a member of the BOMA 360 Program for the Building Owners & Managers Association International. He was a founding member of the Sustainable Laboratories Canada group and spoke at their Regional Conferences. Through the NRC Bill was involved with the Real Property Institute of Canada which included all of the Canadian Federal Government real property professionals.

Personal:

Bill is married with three adult children and ten grandchildren. In his spare time Bill is an avid golfer and plays hockey in an Adult Safe Hockey League. He just completed a major renovation of his backyard. Bill is a regular visitor to the Hawaiian Islands where he looks for inspiration for his gardens and his golf game.

Topic
BOMA 360 PROGRAM – ASHRAE MEMORANDUMS OF UNDERSTANDING AT WORK
This Presentation will cover the work of ASHRAE as part of the BOMA 360 program to demonstrate the inter-organizational cooperation that exists between the two groups in their district roles in the built environment. It will then expand to the other successful, ceremonial and forgotten agreements that have been put in place over the years. The ASHRAE Board of Directors and Executive Committee have been looking into the issue of when an agreement is required and when it is not. For ASHRAE Chapters the intent will be to examine the cooperation that exists between local groups and to apply the lessons learned from the society and from your Chapter to build those relationships.
OPERATIONS GUIDANCE FOR COLD CLIMATE BUILDINGS
ASHRAE has recently published the second edition of the “Cold Climate Buildings Design Guide”. This Presentation will cover the content in the book with a focus on the application of the lessons learned over 45 years of operating buildings in a cold climate. The new edition has 15 chapters of updated and brand-new content that will be highlighted to show the value of keeping such a guide in your library. This will also include a promotion for the March 2023 HVAC Cold Climate Conference in Anchorage, Alaska. Any region that has buildings with a heating system will benefit from this information.
AN OWNER’S PERSPECTIVE ON BUILDING DECARBONIZATION
95% of all buildings that will exist in 2030 are already in existence and most were not built to meet the more stringent greenhouse gas emissions targets that political leaders are supporting after COP26. We know what we need to design to make buildings better. This Presentation will cover the financial, environmental, political, and operational pressures being faced by the owners of our existing building stock and how can ASHRAE members can respond to their needs more effectively.
USING ASHRAE BUILDING EQ TO INFLUENCE BUILDING OWNERS
Building EQ is one of the very few tools developed by ASHRAE that can generate revenue for a consulting engineer or contractor interested in promoting energy conservation. This presentation will provide a building owner’s perspective on the program and, using case studies, how to promote the service to those with the deepest pockets. By reducing energy consumption there will be a parallel reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in those areas using fuel fired electrical generating plants or gas fired heating.
TEAM BUILDING – SPORTS LESSONS APPLIED TO LEADERSHIP
Bill has been a leader at nearly everything he has gotten involved with over the many years of his career. When asked about his leadership style he responds that he is a coach. It comes from experience with many great coaches and a few not-so-great coaches. This presentation will focus on Bill’s experience with leading and motivating ASHRAE groups at all levels, employees in the workplace and amateur sports teams. The discussion will then focus on the leadership opportunities that ASHRAE provides for its members and how they can be applied to your professional career ambitions.
INDOOR AGRICULTURE FACILITIES AND EQUIPMENT – TECHNICAL CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES
Climate Change is driving a fundamental evolution in the way we feed the world. Buildings are being created that will grow our food locally under controlled conditions. The explosive growth of the cannabis industry in Canada has created massive indoor agriculture facilities in cold climates with little or no sunlight in the plant growth areas. This presentation will outline the evolution of the indoor agriculture industry and the challenges that it presents to the health of our buildings, our people and our environment.
EXISTING BUILDING COMMISSIONING (EBCX)
Bill was the chair of the two original ASHRAE Guideline Committees that produced Guideline 0.2 that defined the commissioning process steps and Guideline 1.2 that produced the technical guidance specifically for HVAC&R systems and equipment. This presentation will review why EBCx is different from new construction commissioning. It will then provide case studies on the application of EBCx to produce various benefits for the owners and occupants of facilities using the three focus areas of Energy Conservation, Indoor Environmental Quality and Operations & Maintenance.