2024-2025 – Matt Swenka

From Matt Swenka, November 2025:

As a quick introduction to myself, I grew up on a sheep and crop farm in northeast Iowa near Fayette.  Growing up, there was a lot of wrenching, welding, and tinkering that made engineering a natural fit and what better school to do it at than Iowa State.  Recognizing that I needed a little cash for college (or at least some beer money), I landed a summer job at a local residential plumbing, heating and cooling company. Beyond installing furnaces, ACs and plunging a couple toilets, we installed a significant number of geothermal units. From there I was hooked, how can we not only heat and cool our buildings but also do it efficiently.  I graduated from ISU in 2008 with a BS and MS in mechanical engineering. Since then, I’ve been working at Willdan (formerly The Weidt Group) as an energy consultant helping folks across the US and internationally identify opportunities to improve their building energy performance.

Many years ago, Andrew Pospisal drug me along to an ASHRAE BOG meeting.  I think he was looking for a warm body to fill a board position.  I figured I’d keep showing up, if nothing else for the lunch – the company wasn’t half bad either!  As typically happens with ASHRAE, somewhere along the line you forget to say no.  I found myself working through various committee positions, chairs and eventually the opportunity to lead the best ASHRAE Chapter around! My primary goal as president was to deliver quality educational and social opportunities to our membership.  I think we delivered, averaging 1 event per month, hosting a vendor driven tech session, and collaborating on events with like minded groups.  We continued our involvement with the excellent student group at Iowa State and raised an incredible amount of RP funds.

Beyond my local ASHRAE involvement, I’ve had the opportunity to be involved in committees at the society level.

All around, it has been an incredibly rewarding opportunity to learn from so many talented industry folks and be a small part of it.

My wife, Erin, and I live in Des Moines with our two sons.  We can often be found at a soccer practice, building Legos, on the farm driving tractor, or cheering on the Cyclones!