Chairman’s Message
Prof. Stoecker was a visionary when it came to cultivating relationships with international colleagues within the ammonia refrigeration industry. Just last month while I was at the Chillventa Conference in Germany, I was reminded of how Will is recognized and how well remembered around the world he is wherever there is a gathering of professionals who know and understand ammonia refrigeration.
He was committed to the safe and efficient use of ammonia as a refrigerant. Will was a great believer in the tremendous potential for the use of ammonia as a refrigerant in nontraditional applications. In a technical paper presented at the 1989 IIAR Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas, Will talked about the potential growth in the use of ammonia as a refrigerant and the challenges we all face as an industry.
Will was one of the first to understand that a systems-wide approach to our field was the key to safety. Instead of just writing about the disparate components and technologies that make up our systems, he was thinking globally about whatever technologies were available throughout his long career and how to use them to optimize the performance of the entire industry.
In doing so, he uncovered many opportunities to improve not only efficiency, but also safety. The end result was that even the technical paper delivered in Austin, nearly twenty years ago, contains a message that is still every bit as relevant today as it was back then.
Will wrote, “Since safety is the major challenge facing potential applications of ammonia, this issue should receive top priority. Any fear held by the general public as well as by the engineering field in the more widespread application of ammonia must be dispelled by operating existing and new ammonia systems absolutely free of accidents.”
The excerpt comes from just one of seven technical papers Will authored or co-authored and presented at the annual conference over the years. However, his extensive bibliography represents only a portion of his legacy with IIAR.
Will was chairman of the education committee for many years. He also served on the Research Committee; held the position of Scientific Advisor; and wrote a newsletter column entitled Ask the Professor during the 80s and 90s. In 1992, Will served as an industry spokesman in the IIAR video, Refrigerant of the Future. And, in the later-half of the 90s until the early years of the 21st Century, Will was responsible for the development and organization of the popular ProblemSolution Session at the annual conference. Throughout his career, he was a model volunteer and it was IIAR and the industrial refrigeration industry that were the beneficiaries of that dedication.
Long after his retirement, Will continued to be the most familiar face at IIAR annual meetings. He placed a high value on his role as mentor to so many new generations of engineers, sitting in on educational sessions and exchanging ideas with anyone who wanted to talk.
It was because of his enthusiasm that our organization has such a strong foundation for research and mentorship . . . an asset we have all made good use of. In order to continue to grow and innovate, we must continue to make contributions to the free-exchange of ideas and technical documentation on which we have come to depend. This is the legacy that Will has left, and we, as an organization, are committed to keeping it alive.
IIAR is the collective voice of an industry. Volunteerism has been at the very core of IIAR’s success as a technological organization since it was founded almost 40 years ago.
Everything IIAR produces from bulletins to safety posters, from DVDs to the Piping Handbook has been the product of volunteerism, and many of the articles in this magazine are written by volunteers. The conference workshops, technical papers and panels are all prepared by volunteers. And, the IIAR Board of Directors are all volunteers. We encourage everyone who is a member of IIAR to contribute to the industry’s collective knowledge by participating on a committee or task force.
The work goes on as our committees and task forces collaborate on conference calls, organize meetings, and generate relevant material with one goal in mind – to educate an industry and promote the safe and effective use of ammonia as a refrigerant. This was Will’s passion. We can all honor his memory by continuing to devote ourselves to his lifelong mission.
