Final Meeting of The Year!

Dear colleagues,

This letter is my last presidential letter to you-I won’t be running for a second term.

It’s been a pleasure being part of our Golden Gate ASHRAE for over 10 yrs. I started first as part of the Membership Promotion committee helping Erika J. Stewart and learned a lot from her and everyone else including Devin Abellon, MP RVC at the time. I became MP Chair and soon I will be past President.

My heart is filled with joy and great memories, I have truly made long lasting friendships. I have over 57,000 ASHRAE friends around the World now. To remind everyone who we are globally, here is a snapshot:

https://www.ashrae.org/File%20Library/About/Society-Snapshot-November-2017.pdf

I will always be grateful for what I have received as part of our local GG, National and International ASHRAE Society, that’s why it makes me happy to actually give back and not just take-you do the same!

Few weeks ago, me and few other GG board members including our SA committee members visited Learning without Limits - Education for Change, Charter Elementary School in Oakland. We had fun with three  4^th grader classes teaching them to build a simple electric motor. This is the first time we have done this and the Golden Gate Chapter Achieved the K-12/STEM Leadership Award for the first time!

Week after, on May 19^th, I was honored to be the keynote speaker to the SFSU 2018 Engineering Graduation Ceremony and had pleasure of seeing my young faculty, the cheerful gators wearing purple and yellow and their proud family members. Few days later our GG Chapter board members and committees, led and represented by Jeremy Martinez (GGAC) and Dave Palty (GGAC RVC) for a day on the hill in Sacramento!

List goes on, point is to step back, slow down and reflect where you spend your volunteer time, make it count.

Thank you to all my board members and committee chairs for the precious moments spent with me over the years!

Instead of naming them all, I want you all to please familiarize yourself with all of our volunteers (35+) and give them your support for next year and years to come. We have been building a team for a while. Familiarize yourselves with the Regional Officers too, so if you have big ideas-bring them both the Golden Gate and to the Region X leaders:

http://ggashrae.org/board.php

http://ggashrae.org/Committees

https://www.regionx.org/leaders

We had successful Product Show and Project Awards night at the PGE Center last month.

Kuddos to all exhibitors, presenters, GG members and student awardees. Special thanks for our PGE Partners for everything they do to help us out and ultimately help us put the money where we need the most. We will give out even more scholarships next year!

Being President and a leader is not the easiest volunteer job (most times). Tough decisions need to be made all the time, emotions and friends aside. Our GG chapter needs to thrive and survive, grow and attract, change and expand. Take individual small steps, listen to your leaders-you elected them. Speak up if you see and are affected by something that doesn’t’ belong at ASHRAE or needs improvement. Please vote on this year’s ballot coming soon via email or at the last meeting for the season on June 14^th at Scott’s in Oakland.

Furthermore, let’s fill in the gaps we have for next year on CTTC, Communications and Web Master Chair, Community Engagement and Golf Tournament Wizard chairs!

I can’t do it because I will be volunteering as liaison for the Golden Gate Chapter and our Redwood Empire Section. I’m excited to bring some ideas and work with the Redwood Empire Section Leadership in 2018-2019 cycle.

My presidential theme since day one has been about leadership and giving back, about the awareness of the World events impacting our Bay Area, about inclusion not division, about growing our female engineers presence in AEC industry, about students and mentoring and about expanding our ASHRAE communities serving by example. Please continue the legacy and bring your own A game in the years to come!

As usual, I’m always accessible to talk about anything you think will make ASHRAE a better society locally, Nationally and Worldwide, my cell 510-561-8816 or nikola.kravik@me-engineers.com

Warmest Regards,

Nikola Kravik

2017-2018 Golden Gate President