This online Roundtable explores the electric equipment for commercial kitchens. Hear from New Buildings Institute and the California Energy Design Assistance (CEDA) program along with our special guests from Frontier Energy Food Service Technology Center, Rational, Jade Range/Beech Ovens, as well as others.

Panelists

Richard Young, Director of Outreach, Frontier Energy Food Service Technology Center (FSTC)—an unbiased, commercial foodservice, research-and-training facility. Trained as an electrical engineer, Richard started his career in alternative energy, changing from energy-generation to energy-efficiency when he joined the FSTC research team over 34 years ago. He is a contributor to the USGBC’s LEED rating system and the EPA’s ENERGY STAR program. Richard focuses his efforts on translating Frontier Energy’s 35 years of food service research into practical information. He has created and delivered over 1500 presentations and classes during the last 30 years and authored numerous research reports and articles in magazines, newsletters, and on the web. Richard is currently an advisor to the Mission College culinary education program and the Worldchefs Sustainability Education for Culinary Professionals program. He is also the creator and author of the online Foodservice Energy Efficiency Expert (Fe3) training and certification program.

Michael Slater, Frontier Energy FSTC
Michael is a Research Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the renewables and environment industry. As an engineer at Frontier Energy, Inc, Michael specializes in decarbonizing technologies related to hot water systems for the food service industry. His current focus is on the energy and water economics and savings opportunities of large service water heating.

Lee Baker, Vice President of Product Management at RATIONAL Cooking Systems. Rational is an international manufacturer of cooking appliances for commercial kitchens. Their story began over 50 years ago with the idea of combining dry and moist heat to create the ideal cooking environment. In the USA, they currently have an install base of over 65,000 units coast to coast and they offer the intelligent iCombi Pro and the iVario Pro which will handle up to 90% of all thermal cooking tasks for commercial kitchens.

Kurt Eickmeyer, CFSP, Senior Vice President, Executive Strategic Initiatives, Jade Range/Beech Ovens
Kurt used his background as a ceramic engineer to help Wood Stone grow from a startup to an industry leader with more than $30 million in annual revenue. He is proud to now be a part of Jade Range / Beech Ovens bringing innovative, high quality, customer driven initiatives to the rapidly changing world of foodservice.

Moderator:

Susan Harris, Senior Technical Communications Advisor, New Buildings Institute
Susan has over 13 years experience in NBI communications with projects that include the Advanced Water Heating Initiative.

This is the second of a six-part series in 2024 where we talk about electrification and decarbonization with manufacturers of key technologies. Our previous event focused on Low-GWP HVAC, Refrigeration, and Water Heating Equipment.