Celebrating excellence in refrigeration—and the projects shaping a more efficient, innovative future

ASHRAE’s Refrigeration Technology Committee, also known as REF-CPCC, celebrates successes across comfort cooling and heating, process refrigeration and the cold chain. The Milton W. Garland Award for Project Excellence is open to commercial and industrial projects that have been in service for at least one year, but no more than four.

The award commemorates Milt Garland, who worked for the Frick company for over 80 years and held numerous patents on refrigeration technologies that are now considered standard. He joined Frick in 1920 at the age of 24 following service in the U.S. Navy during World War I, eventually rising to President for Technical Services. Even after formally retiring in 1967, he continued contributing as a consultant, mentoring generations of engineers.

ASHRAE established the award in his honour in 1989, allowing him to witness its early recognition. He later received further honours, including recognition as a refrigeration technology pioneer at ASHRAE’s Centennial meeting in 1995, Distinguished 50-year member status, the F. Paul Anderson Award and the Louise and Bill Holladay Distinguished Fellow Award.

Milt’s career spanned a wide range of applications, from work on the Hoover Dam to cooling South African gold mines and supporting ice cream manufacturing. The diversity of award-winning projects reflects this same breadth.

Previous winners include heating a Norwegian city using river water as a heat pump source and cooling penguins at St Louis Zoo. In process refrigeration, awards have recognised innovations such as a solar-powered strawberry freezer and brewery modernisation. Cold chain awards have included grocery retrofit projects, a large-scale cold store achieving LEED Gold certification and the development of novel oil management systems.

The common thread across all these projects is excellence in both design and implementation, regardless of the application. If you have recently completed a project that demonstrates similar qualities, the Refrigeration Technology Committee encourages submissions to share and celebrate that success.

Further details on how to enter can be found at www.ashrae.org/refrigeration. Entry forms are available online, with a submission deadline of May 1. There is no limit to the number of entries, but entrants must be ASHRAE members and have permission from the facility owner.