BUENA VISTA, Fla. - The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) foundation board has launched its Expanding the Network of Knowledge endowment campaign. ASHRAE officially kicked off the campaign during its 2005 Winter Meeting by announcing early leadership gift pledge commitments of $500,000 from Carrier and $300,000 from Trane.

Through the campaign, the ASHRAE foundation is raising endowment funds to provide the financial support to offer tailored educational programming necessary to ensure that HVACR professionals are prepared for what lies ahead.

"The foundation's recent success is a remarkable sign of the industry's commitment to secure its own future," Thomas Mikulina, chair of the ASHRAE foundation, said. "All of the money raised in this campaign will go toward enhancing educational initiatives that will help to strengthen the HVACR industry for years to come."

Other early campaign donors include: DuPont ($175,000), Honeywell ($100,000), Johnson Controls ($100,000), Rheem ($100,000), York ($100,000), Emerson Climate Technologies/Copeland ($75,000), Danfoss ($50,000), Desert Aire ($25,000), Nailor Industries ($25,000), and Baltimore Aircoil ($15,000).

"The foundation's fundraising success has been remarkable, but we still have a long way to go," Mikulina said.

To date the campaign has raised $1.465 million. The foundation has a goal to raise a minimum of $5 million.

Publication date: 02/28/2005