Past Presidential Facts
George “Elmer” May was our first president. At that time, we were known as The American Society of Heating & Ventilation Engineering (ASH & VE). Although we don’t have exact dates, our Society recognizes that our Chapter was officially chartered in 1939. It was not until December of 1958 when the chapter officially became The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning Engineers after merging with ASRE (American Society of Refrigerating Engineers). The first president of the combined societies was Thomas Stokes (1959-60).
Our chapter’s second president, Cary B. Gamble, began a legacy of leadership which really guided our chapter during the early years of the New Orleans Chapter. Gamble’s consulting engineering business was widely respected throughout the country. His firm was a pioneer and did many high-profile jobs in the early days of air conditioning. He also encouraged participation in ASHRAE, and from his firm, they gave us the following presidents: William Dudley, Jr., Ralph Elizardi, William “Red” Martin, Jr., Thomas Stokes, Edward Sanford, Randy Lewis, Paul Coe, Frederick Lotz, Jr, and Floyd Berlin. Tom Boudreaux served as president while he was with Mechanical Construction Company, also worked at Cary Gamble.
Little is known about several of our early presidents, besides several who worked with Cary Gamble. In 1933-34, our 5th President became E.K. “Sol” Strahan, Sr. (who was awarded the distinction of ASHRAE Fellow). After working at York, he started his own sales firm, with offices in both New Orleans and Jackson, MS. He continued operations in Jackson with his son E.K. Strahan, Jr., who served as our president in 1952-53. The New Orleans office has since closed and continued operations in Jackson. Walter Grant followed Sol Strahan in 1934-35 as president. Walter formed a sales agency called Grant and Associates, and operated 56 years selling heating, plumbing and temperature controls.
Since becoming an ASHRAE member in 1983, I have had the pleasure of working with several of our past presidents. Bill “Red” Martin (president in 1951-52) left Cary Gamble and and in 1962, formed William B. Martin Consulting Engineers. In 1970, he joined Guillot, Sullivan, Vogt, & Martin. In 1977, he joined Gene Sullivan to become Sullivan and Martin. After, he formed Martin Engineers. He finished his career at the Mathes Group.
R. K. Goode (1957-58) founded one the leading rep agencies in the area, representing Barber Coleman in the air distribution and controls business for many years.
Edward Sanford (1960-61) also left Cary Gamble and formed his own firm called Sanford and Associates which practiced up until the mid 1980’s until his death.
Randy Lewis (1962-63) had a very rich career which after leaving Cary Gamble, worked at Babst Mechanical, R.L. Mechanical and Johnson Controls until his death.
Harold Faller (1963-64) also had a very successful practice. His firm also spawned two future presidents – L. Rae Tinto (1973-74) and Jimmy Reuter (1989-90). Jimmy also later served as president of the Baton Rouge Chapter.
Paul Coe, Jr. (1964-65) was very influential and was responsible for the mechanical design of several of our high-rise buildings downtown. He left Cary Gamble for a very successful career at Mechanical Construction Company. MCC also provided us with Scuddy Fontenelle, who was president in 1982-83, along with Tom Boudreaux in 1988-89. MCC also gave us Michael Cooper, president in 2011-12, and Jacob Alter, president in 2014-15. Michael Cooper went on to serve ASHRAE at the regional level as the Region VII DRC. He is only one of two New Orleans Chapter members to serve at this level (the other being David Levine).
David Levine was very active in our Society and would have been president of the Society had it not been for his untimely death in 1980. As a testament to the service he provided to our Society, the Region we belong to (Region VII) awards a plaque that bears his name to the chapter president who exhibits the best performance during the year. To my knowledge, we have won it three during the presidencies of Deborah Brandt (1997-98), Cliff Gillio (2000-01), and my presidency in 1996-97.
Frank Fisher, president in 1966-67, formed a rep agency called Fisher Engineering, which also gave us presidents Mason Foil, Steve Sulli, and Mark Scheuermann.
Earl Morrison had the honor of being President during the 1972 Winter Meeting, which also included a huge product show. This was quite an honor for our chapter. This honor was repeated in 1994, with Mary Jenkins as our president during that meeting. This meeting, once called the Semi-Annual Meeting was also held in
Waring Green served our chapter faithfully for many years after our presidency in 1976-77 as our chapter historian. In 1999, the Society recognized his career and accomplishments by awarding Waring the honor of becoming a Fellow in 1999. In 2003, he also received the 50 Year Distinguished Service Award presented by the Society.
Ernie Belmont (1977-78) recently passed away, but anyone who ever attended a meeting with him remembers the great invocations he always provided us. He was always a pleasure to have at our meetings.
Harold Flettrich, who was president in 1979-80, and one of his employees later became our first female president, Katty LaVassuer in 1990-91. She was the first of several which includes Mary Jenkins (1993-94), Deborah Brandt (1997-98), Heidi Gremillion (2001-02), Gina Hiatt (2003-04), Lonnie Carver (2004-2005), and Lorey Flick (2019-2020). One of Harold’s other employees who served as president was Joe Riorda in 1978-79. Joe also worked at NOPSI, which also provided us Arthur Mott in 1985-86. NOPSI and Louisiana Power and Light later merged and formed Entergy, which provided us Walter Barnes as president in 1991-92, and Lonnie Carver.
Louis Orth served as president in 1984-85. He was also the committee chair for student activities for many years. Louis was a professor at Tulane, where he had the distinction of teaching several of our members and past presidents.
Alan Maddox was president in 1987-88. He worked at his father’s rep agency and later formed a test and balance agency.
When I joined the Society, Floyd Berlin was president (1983-84) and we had our regular meetings at Masson’s at the Lakefront (near West End Café, where we had our executive committee meetings for several years).
We became concerned for a while as a chapter that we would put any restaurant out of business by our holding a meeting there. After Masson’s closed, we met at Drago’s (before it became famous for their char-broiled oysters) for several years (I remember Jimmy Reuter announcing during the meeting there that the World Series game had been postponed due to an earthquake- the same one which ravaged the San Francisco and the bay area). We met for a while at Smilie’s. We met a few times at the
Frank Schambach was president in 1992, and after his presidency, was very active in Region VII, serving for several years as a Region VII Vice-Chair for Refrigeration. He was also the first committee chair to appear at an early morning Chapter Regional Conference Meeting with sunglasses! Besides being a recipient of the Chapter’s Cary B. Gamble award in the early 1990’s, he was also recognized by our Region with The Regional Award of Merit in 2000. The Society honored Frank with the Distinguished Service Award in 2003. Frank spent many years at the University of New Orleans. Another former president, Harold Baur (2006-07) also spent part of his career at UNO.
Our chapter has hosted five Chapter Regional Conferences since 1984. The first was held during the presidency of Floyd Berlin in 1984. It coincided with the World’s Fair in 1984, and it was co-chaired by Floyd and Tom Boudreaux. With the fair at the same time, it proved to be quite a challenge organizing, and it was nearly swapped with the hosting chapter the next year, but they were able to pull the event off. For his efforts, Floyd was awarded the Cary B. Gamble Award in 1985. In the 1990’s we had the honor of hosting two Chapter Regional Conferences. In 1992 was co-chaired by Barry Schully (President in 1994-95) and Louis Braquet. The CRC was so successful, when the New Orleans Chapter was selected to have the CRC in 1999, Barry was asked to chair again with Dave Strawn (President in 1995-1996). Both events rallied the chapter and helped the chapter grow for several years after the meeting. As a result of the success of each CRC, Barry was awarded the Cary B. Gamble Award, which recognized outstanding service to the chapter in 1992 and 1999. Dave Strawn was awarded the Cary B. Gamble Award in 1999 for his contribution to the 1999 CRC. Barry and Dave were also recognized by Region VII; both were recipients of the Regional Award of Merit in 2001 and 2002 respectively. Besides Barry and Dave, one other member of Schully Strawn and Associates served as president, and that was me, who served as your president in 1996-97. I have spent many years as the chapter historian, and I have also served the Region as Region VII Historian from 2010 to 2014.
We hosted two recent CRC’s, one in 2010, chaired by Damien Serauskas and Frank Schambach. It was so well executed and the chapter had so much fun hosting it that we got it back in 2014. This time it chaired by Michael Cooper and Frank Schambach. Both meetings were very successful and with the balcony room at the Royal Sonesta, a great time was had by all.
Dave Pieper (2002-03) revitalized our Delta Digest back in the old days when we still used paper and was recognized by our Region for having the best newsletter in 1997.
Several of our past presidents have spent part of their career working for Johnson Controls, including Charlie Stiegler (1998-99), Jay Dlugos (2005-06, now with Bernhard), and Kyle Sharbonno (2010-11, now with Gootee Construction). Jay has had he unique experience that no other president has had – being the president of a chapter that ceased to exist after Hurricane Katrina. He and his Board of Governors deserve a great deal of credit for revitalizing the chapter after our membership was scattered after the storm.
Damien Serauskas was president in 2007-08. He spent part of his early career with Moses Engineers, before forming his own engineering firm. He is one of four recent presidents who worked at Moses, including Wendell Humphres (2013-14, now with Pontchartrain Mechanical), Cameron Duplantier (2015-16) and Jacob Alter (2014-15, now with Bernhard).
Mak Kersanac was president in 2008-09. Mak worked with Carrier and Trane during his career before moving to the Stennis Space Center. After spending time away from the chapter, he re-emerged and served as the Region VII Student Activities Chairman.
Kelly Hasney, Jr. followed Mak as president in 2009-10. He has spent most of his career at Mid-South Equipment, one of the oldest rep agencies in the city that was founded by Spud Spaulding, a very influential figure in our industry.
Michael Bonano was president in 2012-13, and his company, Commercial and Industrial Sales, also gave us Keith Earhart in 2016-2017.
Tyler Schmitz, one of many of our past presidents who have worked with Trane was our past president (2017-18).
Paul Reuter Jr. followed Tyler as president in 2018-2019. Paul works at Automated Controls, where he has spent his entire career, and is also nephew to Jimmy Reuter, who served as president to both the New Orleans and Baton Rouge Chapter.
Our recent past president is Lorey Flick Lorey was a partner at ADS Engineers in New York City and worked several years in the ASHRAE Chapter in New York City before serving as President there in 2014-2015. After coming home in 2016, she started Flick Engineering Professionals and joined our local chapter (also co-founder of Synergy Consulting Engineers in 2019). She is one of few members who had two terms as president in different chapters when she became our president in 2019-2020. She also has the distinction of having her term interrupted by COVID-19, which suspended all chapter meetings the last months of her term. She served as the Region VII DRC for Governmental Affairs.
Kurt Nossaman, who was with Bernhard, took over from Lorey in the middle of COVID. He accepted a job in Colorado halfway through his term, and Keith Deshautreaux with Gallo Mechanical took over his post the remainder of 2020 through 2021-22. It was a difficult task, with in-person meetings suspended and only online meetings. Despite this, the chapter continued operations. In 2022, Allison Briede Badon with Bernhard (Now ENFRA) became president and started meetings again and resurrected the chapter again from a difficult situation. She came up with the idea of two-year terms, as the first year is always a learning curve and the second year would be a lot more productive. Her presidency has been very successful, and the chapter has been recognized in our region with several awards at the CRC. Allison serves through 2024 and was succeeded by Kristen Kessler, who is with Siemens. Kristen continued to provide industry leadership as the chapter was heavily engaged in Energy Standards at the Legislative and New Orleans level.
Our chapter has been very fortunate to have the leadership we have enjoyed. In attempting to give a brief overview of some to the accomplishments of our past presidents, the problem we create is overlooking the accomplishments of those we have not named, who gave up years of service to our chapter. For all those we have mentioned and for all those who we have missed, we thank you for the leadership you have provided for our chapter’s existence and growth. It is our hope that you will pass along the contributions of those not named so they too can be recognized for what they did.
Submitted by Michael Cooper, originally written May 2004, and last revised June 2025.
