Trust is the firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.
Our reinvention of AutomatedBuildings.com is working and it is fueling industry trust.
Our industry is driven by the trust of who is writing. The new AB2.0 site is your place to build this trust.
In our redesign & reinvention, it became apparent that we not only need the support of a few, edited by one but to provide an industry-edited dynamic library/landing/launch pad where we all can write on the walls for the world to see and the industry to exchange ideas.
Our sponsors, Contributing Editors, and approved Contributors share their messages helping build this Industry Resource/Library with their valuable content instantly in their own words and multi-media depictions. All are written on our wall and shared on their own social media post.
Thank you, industry for your trust in our vision and for sharing your powerful trust in interacting with all and demonstrating how trust can propel us all as an industry.
We are all bright lights on the industry tree.
I am very pleased with our impact in just a few months and look forward to what we will collectively achieve in 2023
This blast from the past from Andy Trust: The Primary Currency in an Open Systems World
“It takes work to earn it, care to nurture it, and only one poor decision to lose it“
When I reflect on how I arrived here in this position of trust I think of all those that trust me to do what I said I would with that trust I was able to work with all I trusted over the many years the technologies wane but Trust is the staying commodity
My Trust Tree of those who trusted me so I can share this message for you to gift “Trust” this year
What does Ken know about facility operation?
Most Engineered System readers know me from my monthly Building Automation Columns and my online internet readers know me as the Founder/Editor/Owner of AutomatedBuildings.com but before doing either of these I spent over 35 years in the industry optimizing operating procedures in existing facilities and large buildings.
Johnson Controls in Milwaukee originally trained me as a service/sales engineer. I left my post as service manager with JCI to operate several buildings for a local developer. After that, I accepted a contract position as the Assistance Energy Analyst for the Province of Alberta. This gave me exposure to the new and exciting world of computer-simulated energy performance, although the program did run on paper cards on a mainframe computer in Ottawa over a very slow modem.
For over 25 of these 35 years I operated as Sinclair Energy Services Ltd providing energy simulations, conservation, and automation consulting for existing large buildings in Western Canada. While working on a computer simulation for a 60-acre solar heated bubble that was to bring a mild environment to a northern Alberta town for both the construction and finished town site Don Holte of Nova Engineering taught me that the scope and approach to environment control engineering were unlimited. Don went on to be the International President of ASHRAE. Several of my industry mentors share a good understanding of computerized large-building simulation principles. I started Sinclair Energy Services Ltd to do computer simulations, and energy conservation, as well as identify computerized controls-related opportunities in large existing buildings.
The University of Alberta (U of A) started a total Direct Digital Control system in 1975. I was lucky to be part of this project that was installing large campus buildings with only a total DDC without any conventional controls. The computers were as big as refrigerators, and we had a system analyst and a team of code monkeys, plus we had to create and build most of our own software and sensors as most had not been invented yet or were too costly. Being part of the team that created these extremely interesting leading-edge systems spawned many life mentors for me. I was amazed at the quantity and variety of people required to build what had not been built before. This project and associated mechanical/lighting energy conservation projects for over 15 million square feet of the facility helped me gain insight into large complex operations. A central chilled water plant with over 15,000 tons of cooling and miles of distribution allowed us to hone our hydraulic skills and let the DDC system prove us wrong or right.
In the early 1980s, I moved to Vancouver Island and Sinclair Energy Services Ltd started providing similar services for the British Columbia Buildings Corporation which then had over 22 million square feet of space in over 700 buildings. The DDC revolution had begun and it was centered on the lower BC Mainland and Vancouver Island. Most of our energy studies on existing buildings ended in the retrofit of the existing controls to the new DDC systems. Working with the industry to make the new DDC as powerful and flexible as possible further increased my team of industry mentors.
I still had time to be a founding member and a President of both the local chapter of AEE and the Vancouver Island Chapter of ASHRAE. I was fortunate to be on the teams that won the ASHRAE international energy award for existing buildings Robson Square for BCBC and Vancouver Art Gallery for the City of Vancouver and several AEE energy awards, plus local BC Hydro Power Smart awards.
Sinclair Energy Services worked with the local utility BC Hydro’s “Power Smart Program” which allowed us to identify, document, and oversee the implementation of many million dollars of energy conservation projects. Several clients as well as several large hospitals allowed us more insight into special application projects. All of our work was done in existing facilities and buildings and the identification of these operational opportunities gave me insight into the existing operation team.
In all our projects, much of our time was spent retrofitting, rebuilding, and training building operators to the point that we created a High-Performance Building Operator’s Course. I wish that the Web had been invented so we could share this with you now. It included the essence of room load calculation, building simulation, thermal, and energy analysis of various types of air handling type, control strategy development, power optimization, and more. The best part was the creation of a personnel network of high-performance operators that could share ideas and help each other solve problems. I hope to achieve the rekindling of this valuable network of super operators online
The CCS manual can still be accessed from here my LinkedIn post
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/local-history-our-ddc-industry-ken-sinclair/?trk=mp-reader-card
Seems to still work can download even still download word files
This 1994 document can still be accessed and speaks to the staying power of online
Trust online presentation
