ASHRAE installed Sarah E. Maston, PE, BCxP, LEED AP, as its 2026-27 Society president during the organization's Annual Conference in Austin, Texas, which ran from June 27 through July 5. ASHRAE's Sarah Maston presidency puts a commissioning and energy-services specialist at the head of one of the HVAC industry's most influential technical and standards-setting bodies for the coming year.
A Career Built on Commissioning and Energy Services
Maston serves as the Geographic Discipline Leader for Commissioning and Energy Services in New England for Colliers Project Leader, a role that has put her at the center of building-performance verification work across a range of commercial and institutional facilities. Her professional credentials — professional engineer, Building Commissioning Professional and LEED Accredited Professional — reflect a career oriented toward ensuring that buildings and their mechanical systems perform as designed, rather than simply meeting code minimums on paper.
ASHRAE, formally the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, develops widely adopted technical standards covering ventilation rates, refrigerant safety, energy efficiency and indoor air quality that inform building codes across the United States and much of the world. Its presidency is a one-year, largely volunteer leadership role filled by a rotating cast of practicing engineers, facility managers and academics elected by the organization's membership.
Setting the Theme: 'Changing the Game: Retrofitting for Resilience'
In her inaugural presidential address, Maston introduced the theme for the 2026-27 Society year: "Changing the Game: Retrofitting for Resilience." The theme centers on how the building industry can work together to improve the efficiency, performance and resilience of existing buildings in the face of growing climate and infrastructure challenges, a focus that shifts emphasis toward the far larger population of existing buildings rather than new construction.
That framing reflects a broader industry recognition that the pace of new construction, even amid strong data center and commercial building activity, is dwarfed by the scale of the existing building stock that will need mechanical, electrical and envelope upgrades to meet efficiency, decarbonization and resilience goals over the coming decades. A presidential theme centered on retrofits signals where ASHRAE's technical committees, conference programming and standards work are likely to devote additional attention over the coming year, potentially shaping guidance documents that filter down to practicing engineers and contractors working on existing-building projects.
New Officers and Directors Also Installed
Maston's installation came alongside newly elected officers and directors who will serve alongside her during the 2026-27 Society year, rounding out the leadership team that will guide ASHRAE's technical committee work, conference planning and standards development initiatives. ASHRAE's technical program for the Austin conference itself focused heavily on data centers and thermal systems, reflecting the surge in cooling demand tied to artificial intelligence infrastructure that has reshaped priorities across the broader HVAC engineering community over the past two years.
The conference's emphasis on data center cooling and thermal systems dovetails with, but is distinct from, Maston's presidential resilience theme, illustrating how ASHRAE's membership is simultaneously grappling with the demands of an unprecedented data-center construction boom and the slower-moving imperative to bring the existing commercial building stock up to modern performance standards.
What the Presidency Means for the Industry
While the ASHRAE presidency does not carry direct regulatory authority, the position has historically shaped which technical priorities receive institutional attention and funding within the organization's committee structure, indirectly influencing the standards that eventually filter into state and local building codes. Maston's retrofit-and-resilience framing suggests contractors, engineers and building owners focused on existing-building upgrades may see increased technical resources and guidance documents emerge from ASHRAE over the coming year, particularly around commissioning practices and performance verification, areas closely aligned with Maston's own professional background.
ASHRAE did not immediately detail specific new standards or guideline projects tied to the presidential theme beyond the conference address, though such initiatives typically develop over the course of a presidential term as technical committees align their work programs with the year's stated priorities. ASHRAE's roughly 50,000 members worldwide span consulting engineering firms, manufacturers, contractors, facility owners and academic institutions, giving the organization's committee work an outsized reach into how HVAC systems are designed, installed and operated well beyond its own membership rolls.
Maston takes over the presidency at a moment when the HVAC engineering community is being pulled in two directions at once — toward the cutting edge of data center thermal design on one hand, and toward the slower, less glamorous work of upgrading decades-old mechanical systems in schools, hospitals and office buildings on the other. Her background in commissioning, a discipline focused specifically on verifying that installed systems actually deliver the performance they were designed for, positions her to speak credibly to both audiences over the course of her term.
