Jeffrey John Gross was born January 20, 1971.  He and his family moved from Des Moines, IA to St. Louis in December, 2009.  He is married to Anne Gross and has two sons, William (Bill) (5) and John (1).  Jeff and Anne have been married for ten years and thoroughly enjoy raising their sons.

Jeff was raised in Sioux Falls, SD, where he attended Catholic school through high school.  During high school, he was an honor student and played on state championship hockey and football teams his senior year.  Jeff played hockey at the collegiate level at St. John’s University his freshman year.  Realizing he would not have enough time to be able to pursue a degree in the natural sciences and continue to play hockey in college, he stopped hockey his sophomore year and transferred to Creighton University.  Jeff graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from Creighton University in 1993 and a Master’s of Science degree in Physics in 1995.  While working on his Master’s thesis at Creighton, Jeff’s research in computer control systems on relativistic heavy ion colliders would lay the ground work for his future career in computerized automation.  The year after graduating with his Master’s degree, Jeff taught as an adjunct instructor in the Physics Department at Creighton.

Jeff’s career after academia began in 1997 as a sales engineer with Johnson Controls in Illinois.  Jeff’s ambition and entrepreneurial spirit would quickly push him to leave corporate America and pursue a career with CI3, a privately owned company in Des Moines, IA.  He would spend the next 10 years at CI3, participating in a management buyout of the firm and helping to grow the company to be one of the largest privately owned building automation integrators in the nation.  Jeff’s sales levels at CI3 were in the top 1% throughout the US, enabling him to purchase ownership of Dynamic Controls Inc. (DCI) in January, 2009.  Jeff now serves as the President/CEO of DCI and runs the St. Louis branch.

Jeff has served on numerous boards throughout his industry, including the positions of secretary, treasurer, vice president, president-elect, president, and board of governors.  He has served as trustee of the Hickory Hills Homeowners’ Association and the Whitmoor Homeowners’ Association.  He currently sits on the Creighton University Graduate School Advisory Board and the Energy Program Advisory Board.

Jeff is a private pilot and owns his own plane.  While the primary use of the plane is for travel between offices and to remote projects, the aircraft also allows him and his family to make quick weekend trips to visit out of state family and to remote vacation spots.

Jeff spends his spare time relaxing and traveling with his family.  His extra-curricular activities include pheasant hunting in South Dakota, walleye fishing in Canada and playing hockey during the week and on the weekends.

Following are some of Jeff’s memories of his time in ASHRAE:

“During the 10 or so years I was involved in the Central Iowa Chapter, there was a common theme of having fun, drinking and giving Dan Zaug a hard time.  Board and Chapter meetings were typically fun-spirited (usually at the expense of Dan Zaug) and lively.  Dennis Hogan was always great at turning a boring meeting into a lively discussion.”

Favorite memories include:

– A group of unnamed Chapter members getting stuck in a hotel elevator in the middle of the night at CRC in Cedar Rapids.

– A late night relocation of a drunken Dan Zaug’s vehicle… he couldn’t find it the next morning.

– An unnamed Chapter member driving a golf cart into a water hazard.