Meet Your Instructor (Design Course #2, Module 1)

Steve Kavanaugh, Ph.D., Fellow ASHRAE, Fellow ASME

Kavanaugh is a Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Alabama and owner of Energy Information Services.  He is the author HVAC Simplified (ASHRAE, 2006), primary author of Geothermal Heating and Cooling (ASHRAE, 2014) and primary author of Ground Source Heat Pumps (ASHRAE, 1997).  He has presented 160 GSHP and HVAC short-courses to 5000 attendees and numerous seminars at societal meetings. He publishes the quarterly, Outside the Loop: An Alternative Newsletter for Skeptics of Conventional HVAC  and GSHP Wisdom. He maintains the informational and free software website, www.geokiss.com and has lived in a GSHP heated and cooled home for over 40 years.

Chad Martin, PE | Regional Managing Engineer, GRTI

At 20 years and counting, Chad is Regional Managing Engineer at Geothermal Resource Technologies, Inc. in Asheville, NC.  His focus is on formation thermal conductivity (FTC) testing and geothermal heat exchanger designs for educational, commercial, and institutional buildings.  He has additional expertise with bore thermal resistance calculations for various heat exchanger types. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering, and has been licensed engineer in the state of North Carolina for 13 years.  Chad is a 20+ year member of ASHRAE.

Measuring the conductive connection to underground formations is the  key to precise heat exchange design.  To date GRTI has analyzed data for over 6,000 tests both domestically and internationally.