Two FAMU-FSU College of Engineering affiliates were essential in winning two awards for U.S. Navy base Naval Air Station (NAS) Whiting Field in 2018. Reginald Parker and Jason Poe, managers at NAS Whiting Field, led the company to win the Secretary of the Navy (NAVSEA) Energy Excellence Award and the Federal Energy and Water Management Award.
Reginald Parker, a 1992 electrical engineering graduate and certified energy manager, is the utilities and energy manager for NAS Whiting Field. From 2002-2006 he was the Florida A&M University’s associate director of technology transfer, chair biological and agricultural system engineering, and an assistant professor in industrial and manufacturing engineering at the college. He is also president of the Pensacola Chapter of the FAMU NAA (National Alumni Association).
Jason Poe is an alumnus of the college, graduating with his B.S. in industrial engineering in 1999 from Florida A&M. He serves as NAS Whiting Field’s instillation energy manager.
Whiting Field was awarded the Energy Excellence Award on Aug. 3, 2018 for decreasing its energy intensity by almost 20 percent. Through the creation of a “virtual chiller plant,” a system of interconnected HVAC plants, the base enhanced its energy resiliency and made efficiencies to itself.
In October of the same year, Whiting Field accepted the Federal Energy and Water Management Award in Washington, DC. Poe and Parker worked together on the base’s energy team, where they worked under a Utility Energy Savings Contract (UESC). The contract is an agreement between a federal agency and a utility in mutual efforts to making improvements to save a community’s energy and water. The UESC project called for over 10,000 LED light fixtures, low flow water fixtures, high efficiency HVAC equipment upgrades, transformer replacements and more in effort to save resources.
The SECNAV award included a $25,000 incentive award for the naval air station.