The following stories from the United Kingdom are an extract from the booklet 'Women in the Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Industry."
STORY BY HAYLEY ANN BILLSON
I started my career in the refrigeration and AC industry in 2011 when I became a Trainee Sales Engineer for the North of England. I still work for “Beijer Ref UK”. My father, who for as long as I can remember has always enjoyed working in the same industry, is the one that gave me the motivation to join him. I first qualified with a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) level 1 & 2 in small commercial refrigeration in December 2011. Among other things, once passed, that was a big milestone and part of the qualification to become a Sales Engineer. I then moved into branch management and later into sales management. This entailed training Trainee Sales Engineers and coaching them during their training period. Today I work as a Group Product Manager, a challenging and rewarding role taking products into the business from concept to market leadership. From the initial market analysis I prepare the sales strategy, and roll it out throughout the business.
All my roles in the industry have been challenging, but manageable. The most challenging to date has been obtaining recognition by the industry of the need for refrigerant solutions for the medium and long term as we work through a phasedown situation. I often wonder what our industry would be like if we had continued to use CO2 as a refrigerant as we did in the 1950s!
One of my main motivators is the daily opportunity to make contacts and inform the industry through internal and external communications of the changes happening now. To explain the damaging effects that CFC and HFC refrigerants have had and continue to have. To inform people about the harm that were seen as ideal refrigerants in the 1930’s are causing to our environment. Also to inform the industry that by using history we can find a long-term solution now and make the natural choice that is CO2. The retail sector of our industry is already on board with natural refrigerants and has been since 2005. Unfortunately though, the commercial refrigeration sector is a little more dubious. It is my job to inform customers that there is a choice today. I am working to take away the mystique that surrounds the pressure differences when using carbon dioxide (R744) compared to traditional options.
This industry is seen from the outside as not very exciting. Wow, how wrong perception can be. This is the most exciting industry ever, we actually change the world!
Every day is different for me, I am based in Sutton Coldfield, in the Midlands but far from grounded. I cover the country from the tip of Scotland to Lands End, visiting people throughout our supply chain. I also often visit our suppliers’ manufacturing plants in Italy, which I love doing.
I have been a member of the Institute of Refrigeration since I started in the industry and I have contributed to the Institute by being secretary of the local Newcastle Upon Tyne committee and the London Dinner Committee. More recently I have joined the membership committee, which I really enjoy.
I am also the mother of two young boys aged three and two. I am very fortunate that I can pursue my full-time career in the Refrigeration & Air Conditioning industry while being a loving mum to my boys.
My job is the best for daily learning, researching, sharing knowledge through networking, and fun too through socializing. Who could want for more?
STORY BY JACINTA CADEN 
For over 50 years my family has had refrigeration, electrical and haulage businesses so I was surrounded by RAC, as well as mechanics, from my earliest memories. Albeit normal for me, I now realise I was fortunate to be exposed at a young age to elements of life that I was instinctively interested in. My sisters and I spent many happy hours growing up playing games like “shop” with endless sorts of commercial and domestic equipment. I also spent a lot of my spare time immersed in the business of service and maintenance of trucks and trailers when they were not on trips. I just remember never being bored, not happy until I was somehow “stuck in”. I was always given jobs by mechanics and the like, which made my day! Exploring, observing, learning and asking questions freely as a child I think cemented my natural enthusiasm, which helped facilitate my transition into the real world and into an industry which I very much enjoy today.
I moved to Dublin after I left school at 17, to spread my wings and to avoid falling into the easy trap of continuing with a “hobby” (although getting paid for it was appealing) surrounded by my family who were sheltering me from the real world. I would likely never have learned independence. I would also have less life experience than I do today. Instead, complacency, expectation and dependency were the messages I would probably have absorbed. In addition, anything I have or haven’t accomplished is all my own doing, which is empowering for me.
Once settled in Dublin I eventually decided on pursuing an apprenticeship in RAC, where I officially learned my skills hands-on with a RAC contractor. Working on a combination of RAC equipment/applications was necessary to progress in RAC. I studied in institutions in Cork and Dublin over a four-year period for the off-the-job phases of my apprenticeship, and subsequently qualified as a refrigeration engineer. The ceremony was held at Croke Park in Dublin, Ireland’s national Gaelic Athletic Association stadium, and it was a wonderful occasion to be presented with my qualification by the Minister of Adult Education in front of my peers and family, and also see the many other students who did so well representing other apprenticeships and trades.
Yes, I was the only female doing an apprenticeship in RAC at the time, but as I say, RAC for me was a natural environment, therefore I never gave this statistic a second thought. Throughout my career my upbringing meant I have never felt “rare», so I never assumed I would elsewhere. In hindsight, many
people over the years have commented on this.
When doing air conditioning installations for example, I did not always get the lightest side of a condenser to lift. Depending on the situation some of my colleagues would offer me the lightest side but I never asked for it, also it was an ongoing joke as to who would get the heavy side!
During my apprenticeship I also found the time to get my official driving license for articulated trucks and coaches, allowing me to get paid for a big passion if I ever wanted to in the future. Again, these were my toys as a child, so it felt natural to want to do this.
There were some aspects of being a hands-on engineer that I did not like too much, and an opportunity arose for me to become office based. For ten years I worked at a RAC wholesaler as a Technical Sales Engineer, designing and specifying equipment for RAC applications, providing technical support on
products etc. I worked in Dublin before moving to the UK to support the Manchester and Preston branches during this period. The opportunity to move within a company was also ideal for me.
I accepted an exciting opportunity after that job and for 1n months I was the Area Manager (UK & Ireland) for an Italian manufacturer in the close control air conditioning sector, predominantly offering our niche equipment to consultants and contractors in the data centre and clean room/operating theatre sectors. This was a new area for me, which was rewarding as this aspect of the AC industry proved to be a crucial technical element of our daily lives.
Today I work in the Industrial Refrigeration & Critical Environments division of Integral as the Business Development Manager. I research, source and develop new and existing business, predominantly in the food production/ processing, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, brewing, storage, logistics, life science and critical industries. We deliver comprehensive solutions to the industrial and commercial refrigeration, spiral freezer and heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC) sectors of these markets. We provide reactive service, planned preventive maintenance (PPM), sales, design and installation functions. Having a background in RAC is obviously advantageous to my understanding of our business. I am fortunate to work among some of the best people in their respective welds, which also allows me to flourish and perform. This is an important element to be considered during one’s career.
The RAC industry is ever-changing: whether in terms of global warming, or legislation and with Brexit also on the horizon, there are interesting times ahead. Every day, everywhere I go I see refrigeration new and old. I am always intrigued and sometimes surprised about how RAC is utilized. This makes me proud to be part of an industry that will never die, an industry that everyone needs.
I am currently a member of the Women’s Engineering Society (WES) council, a Member of the Institute of Refrigeration and a member of the steering group for Women in RACHP Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heat Pumps). Although RACHP is not always a popular choice for women, there are many women involved in all levels and types of important roles in our sector. The career opportunities, people, companies and technology out there are fantastic. Like anything else, RAC is a trade most take for granted or are unaware of. There will always be requirements for temperature control, so it can only be rewarding for anyone involved. The skills you can develop can take you anywhere in the world too.
STORY BY ANA CATARINA MARQUES
My career in Refrigeration shows just how thriving this industry is, with many opportunities for personal and professional development.
My first degree in Food Science and Engineering was completed in 2005 at the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra in Portugal, my native country. The degree/training programme included two internships abroad. The first internship took me to Berlin where I spent three months at the Technical University working on a beer fermentation project that employed a yeast immobilization technology to reduce the fermentation time from three weeks to 24 hours. This internship was funded by the European Erasmus programme. The second internship was undertaken at the Federal University of Viçosa in Brazil in their dairy pilot plant. Here I developed a new yoghurt flavour and tested consumer acceptance using sensory analysis.
My introduction to Refrigeration started with an internship at the Food Refrigeration and Process Engineering Research Centre (FRPERC), a former department of Bristol University. The 2006 placement was funded by the European Leonardo Da Vinci programme. At FRPERC I participated in the air cycle project, a system for integrated, rapid heating and cooling of processed foods, where I measured and calculated the heat transfer coefwcients of the system.
At the end of 2006 I began working for Adande Refrigeration as their Test Engineer. Adande is a manufacturer of commercial refrigerators that are sold into Michelin starred restaurants and fast food restaurant chains. It is an innovative company with several patented technologies in Refrigeration, so it was an exciting company to work for. The role consisted of testing and optimizing professional refrigerators and new concepts for the household and retail markets. The work included design and planning of tests, fault diagnostics, prototyping, data analysis and report writing. I gained a very good understanding of capillary expansion circuits, airflow and refrigerant charge optimization. One of the most interesting projects was converting all Adande refrigeration systems from HFC to hydrocarbon refrigerant with low GWP and achieving an energy reduction of 19%. I still fondly remember setting up a test and coming to work excited the following day to see if my improvement idea had worked!
Drawing on my knowledge in food science, I also organized several food quality and safety trials to demonstrate the ability of the Adande patented drawer system to extend food shelf life over conventional refrigeration systems.
In 2008 I started a full-time industrial CASE award PhD that was funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and Adande Refrigeration. The PhD with London South Bank University was undertaken while still working for Adande Refrigeration, so it combined the best of both worlds: academic research and working in the industry.
The PhD investigated the design and operation of a thermal storage domestic refrigerator. A phase change material (PCM) was employed to store energy and then used to cool the compartment. In essence the PCM acted as a thermal battery that extended the refrigerator off-cycle period from minutes to hours, thereby improving its energy efficiency. The PhD allowed me to present four papers at international conferences and publish two papers in peer-reviewed journals, and I won the Ted Perry award, which is given by the UK Institute of Refrigeration for outstanding research in refrigeration. The
research was also shortlisted for the London Mayor’s Low Carbon prize.
After completing the PhD in 2012 there was an opportunity to do a knowledge transfer project (KTP) with the university in Acoustics, to reduce the noise of the Adande commercial refrigerator. This was a new weld that involved diagnostic testing of noise sources, noise and vibration control techniques and sound quality. That is the beauty of engineering: it allowed me to move seamlessly from food science to refrigeration to acoustics.
Because I enjoyed so much working simultaneously in industry and academia, I wrote a successful application for another two-year knowledge transfer project. KTP projects are funded by Innovate UK and provide management training for the research associates. The project was focused on developing a new product for the food service market, and the tempering unit was specifically designed to both chill and rapidly warm up food ingredients. It provided controlled and consistent tempering times for food condiments, addressing a key operational issue in restaurants. A tool was also developed to identify new products that obtain a better return on investment, and a stage gate process was tailored to evaluate project progress. The outcome was an accelerated development of new products from concept to launch. The KTP allowed me to combine my knowledge in food science and refrigeration and was so successful that I won the 2015 Innovate UK Business Leader of the Future award.
Another experience that proved worthwhile, and taught me about negotiation, was becoming a technical expert on a working group of the European Committee for Standardization (CEN TC44 WG2). I was one of the UK experts nominated by the British Standards Institution. The working group drafted two European standards for professional refrigerated storage and blast cabinets. These standards underpinned the testing requirements for compliance of professional cabinets with two key European directives: ecodesign requirements and energy labelling.
In my current role as Engineering Manager at Adande, I am responsible for leading the development of new products and the continuous improvement of the existing product range. I am supported by a team of five: Designers, Test Engineers and a BoM technician. In the past two years we have developed and certified three products for North America, and brought to market an A+ rated commercial refrigerator, which won the 2017 Refrigeration Product of the Year at the UK National ACR Awards.
Above all, the most rewarding work I do is promoting refrigeration as a career to a younger generation. It all started in 2013 when I began chairing the UK Institute of Refrigeration (IOR) RAC Young Engineers network. The network was the brainchild of Ina Colombo, who is now the Deputy Director General of the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR). The objective was to bring together students and young engineers who have an interest in refrigeration and air-conditioning and help them build their professional network. This was achieved by organizing speed networking events where students meet senior representatives from the industry and leading academics.
This experience led to chairing an event for Students and Young Researchers at the 24th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration, held in Japan in 2015. Another key event at the conference was the first “Women in Refrigeration” workshop, which highlighted key barriers influencing the uptake of refrigeration as a career. These two events stimulated the creation of a new IIR working group: CaRe – Careers in Refrigeration, in 2016. The working group aims to make refrigeration and air conditioning more visible to the general public and inspire a young generation to join this exciting field. Another goal is to increase both the cultural diversity and the numbers of women in refrigeration. Since its inception CaRe has had a presence at five international conferences held in Europe, Asia and the USA. The IIR has carried out research into the state of women’s representation in the industry by collecting information from national refrigeration institutions and associations. This research has been presented at conferences and is followed up by workshops. The response has been incredibly positive, as people in the industry recognize the value of inspiring the next generation and fostering career development opportunities. CaRe is developing its social media presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook as the need to reach a wider audience is paramount. Personally, it has been an incredible experience chairing the CaRe working group. I have met incredible people, gained new skills and, more importantly, the initiative can help rebrand the industry to make it more attractive to young people, thus addressing the predicted shortage of engineers. The next CaRe event was held at Chillventa in Germany in October 201n in partnership with Karlsruhe University and the European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE).
Another steering group that I participate in is the UK IOR “Women in RACHP”. It has a synergy with CaRe, while focusing more on mentoring women in the industry through events with hands-on training in refrigeration and personal development activities.
Refrigeration, unlike other welds, does not have a clear career path, but in my experience is a unique industry to be in. It combines knowledge of mechanical design, electrics and electronics, physics, chemistry and food science to solve real technical challenges. Because it has both a direct (refrigerant leakage) and indirect (energy use) impact on climate change, this is an industry where your work can make a significant contribution towards a more sustainable planet.
I have had the opportunity to present at conferences and industry events, and share my career experience with graduates at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and teenagers at the Big Bang careers fair. I have worked on interesting projects around the world and was invited to a networking event at the House of Lords, just to name a few opportunities in this amazing industry.
