All right, everyone. Thank you for joining us
once again on Did You Know, the ESCO HVAC
podcast. So today we're spending some time with
Jennifer Manzo. How are you? Hooray. How are
you, Cliff? I'm doing just fine. You know, this
topic is something that I absolutely love to
learn about. So as much as I enjoy the industry,
I'm a history nerd. And so I love learning about
the history of just anything. But particular,
like our own industry. And you bring a very unique
perspective. And I would love for us to share
that with the audience today. Absolutely. I know
that this topic was kind of inspired by you,
Clifton, because you came to my class, my homeschool
class, and taught about HVAC history, which was
amazing. Yeah, with the refrigerants. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So now we're kind of, I guess, in the forefront
of technology as far as HVAC goes. We've kind
of caught up to the rest of the world, or catching
up, I should say. Catching up. That's right.
And I kind of wanted to go back through with
you and maybe bring the perspective of women
in HVAC. I know that it's much known that we're
2 % of the industry and that we're kind of the
minority. But I just kind of want to put a spotlight
on the fact that women have been in HVAC for
literally ever. So if you're okay with that,
I'd love to talk about it. No, I love that because
I think it's something that everyone should be
aware of because we have a very significant growth
of women in the trades in general. And I'm excited
about it. I love that we're finally getting to
that point where we're breaking stereotypes,
we're breaking stigmas and norms, and we're looking
at an industry kind of like a civilization, right?
We're evolving and we're turning into something
better. And it's really, it's providing a lot
of new benefits and new opportunities within
our industry that I think many people have neglected
for a long time. So yeah, I'm excited about this.
Yeah, me too. All right. So I think I want to
start all the way back in the very beginning,
if that's okay with everybody. I mean, we talk
about women in HVAC. We even talk about women
innovators in HVAC, but we talk about them kind
of starting at that like late 1800s hump, right?
It's kind of the, that's the baseline when we
talk about women getting into HVAC. And that's
how we always think of it is that's when it started.
It's not. So women have been in, I should say,
HVAC adjacent areas since the ancient times.
And I'm talking. Cavemen, women were running
the fires while the men were out providing and
protecting. I mean, when we talk about heating
and cooling spaces, that's really what we're
doing here. And ventilation, when we look at
the underground civilization, Derinkuyu out in
Turkey, right? That's a beautiful example. I
mean, you fit. you know 20 000 people in an underground
city and when they did that they had to have
some people you know in certain spaces tending
fires and making sure ventilation holes didn't
close i mean those this underground city could
not have worked without ventilation i mean obviously
that was the principle but if you can't breathe
yeah like that's the number one thing. And so
those ventilation holes often were tended by
women. Those fires that were keeping all these
children warm were tended by women. And so if
you look really, you really look far back, I
mean, maybe women didn't invent fire. Maybe men
did. Maybe they were the first ones to tend it.
But women very, very quickly after learned that
trade and took it over as their own. And we see
even more examples of that further on in the
ancient world when we get more into civilization.
We see things like the priestesses of the hearth.
And we talk about the priestesses of the hearth
in Greek terms typically, but they were also
Roman. These women were, I mean, in giant, giant
temples were talking, you know, temples on a
scale that if you haven't seen them, you can't
believe how big they are. And they were keeping
these places warm. Well, their job as priestesses
of the hearth were to keep fires burning for
the gods, right? That was the basis. they should
keep these fires going for but we're talking
24 hours a day in a climate that gets cold at
night so Are they only for the gods? Probably
not. You don't want to freeze to death while
you're out there praying, right? So these women,
that was their whole jobs. They were not to leave
the hearth. And on their sleep shifts, which
often only came every 24 hours, you would get
a five -hour break to go sleep. And that's because
you were supposed to be laying your sacrifices
to the gods, and you were a servant of the gods.
And so you would only sleep five hours. You would
get something to eat real quick, and you'd go
right back to that hearth. And you wouldn't leave
it. You would stand right there. keep these herds
going. And they use them for all kinds of ceremonies.
They use these fires for obviously heat. They
use them for all kinds of different reasons,
but the same women were the same people tending
those fires 24 hours a day, no matter what. And
there. often forgot about in terms of textbook
history. When we talk to children, they've never
heard of the priestesses of the earth, but they've
also never heard of even further women in HVAC
situations. Alice Parker, they don't know who
that is. So we're going to get into that a little
bit, but I just want to start in the ancient
world. Then we have women in African tribes,
women all over Mesopotamia that are tending house
fires, keeping their homes warm, cooking for
their children. Women in Egypt would actually
use... What are they called? Something pots.
I have them in my presentation here. Man, I hate
when that happens. It'll come to me. Anyway,
they use these pots and they would have an inner
circle pot and an... outer circle pot made of
terracotta or clay and the outer circle would
hold salt right and that salt is a great way
to keep things cold and the inner circle would
keep their food their vegetables and they would
take these pots and they would pile them in front
of the hottest where the sun was hitting on their
hot you know they would pile them in front of
that that wall and those pots would keep their
homes warm and these women would just you know
take the food out of the pots put more food in
them and they would just tend these these cooling
systems forever and always until they're they
got old and gray, right? So though it was harder
work, and we don't tend to think of that as HVACR,
right? Right there, we have ventilation, we have
cooling, we have heating, we have all of these
different aspects and ventilation as well. If
you cook in your hut, and you don't have a ventilation
system, you're probably not going to be very
comfortable in there or be able to breathe. So
very important. As we get even further on, we
get into the Middle Ages, which is really, really
fun when it comes to women in HVAC. So they're
castles, right? Just for a basis of what we should
start with, castles, I would consider a commercial
entity, not necessarily a residential, even though
most rooms in castles, if you haven't been in
one, they're the size of most of our homes now.
So these are the spaces they're trying to keep
warm. they're made of concrete they're made of
rock they're not they're not ventilated well
they don't have much solar infiltration so they're
trying to keep these spaces warm though that
was done by the women the women were the ones
that tended the fires they were the ones that
cleaned the chimneys um a lot of tragedy struck
because of this these women weren't trained in
any way to deal with a massive fire in a stone
building and so what would happen is you know
that creosil that soot from burning so much wood
or coal would fall right back down the chimney.
It would kill servants. Female servants have,
you know, death certificates that say that, that
say that they died because creosil fell on their
head when they were tending a fire. No kidding.
It's documented. Yeah. The earliest one that
I found today when I was looking was from 1100.
So year 1100, this was happening. Fascinating.
Yes. And then even going more forward than that
outside of castles, if we get into I mean, even
still in castles, if we get into kind of the
Renaissance, right, there were at that point
we were bringing in ice and snow to cool banquet
halls. Catherine de' Medici, she was known for
that. She was absolutely known for it. She would
beat the crap out of a servant who didn't bring
enough ice to her banquet hall because it had
to be perfect. The Medicis were known for just
being absolutely brutal to their servantry, but
also for innovation. She would say, figure it
out, and a servant would go and figure it out.
I mean, you didn't say no to Catherine, right?
So there's tons of different women in the Renaissance
times that were known for just... overseeing,
you know, kind of the HVAC of their dwelling
or even their whole kingdom, which is pretty
awesome. And then if we talk, you know, going
forward, we have obviously the godfather, right?
The godfather of refrigeration, Mr. John Gorey.
Well... Lots and lots of John Gorey's friends
in the scientific community, the people who actually
believed in his craziness, so to speak, were
women. They were women. They said, OK, John,
maybe this part of, you know, your craziness
right now doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
But maybe if we change it. and make it look like
this. It will make a lot more sense. And he's
known for crediting them. He's known for saying
that only women would believe him that this could
be done correctly. And that, I mean, is a stab
at us, of course. It's just to say, you know,
of the times people thought women were crazy
if they were any type of progression, but Angori
was crazy and look what he did for us. So it's
pretty great. Wow. Yeah. That's fascinating.
That's a lot. That's like a jumpstart into history,
like of women in HVAC. Yeah. And I mean, you
can't have one without the other, I guess, is
the thing. And I'm a huge history buff too, Clifton.
As you know, I'm a history teacher. It's what
I do. And I think when I first got into HVAC,
what kind of made me fall in love with it was
the history of it, was the fact that so many
people have to be so innovative and have to really
dig into STEM and mathematics and science and
all these things. And they have to make it work
because if it doesn't, we won't have what we
have today. Medicine is so important. In HVACR,
right? Yep, absolutely. And so there are so many,
I mean, going back, if we really look, I'm sure
we can find thousands of thousands of situations
where people tried to keep herbs cool, right?
But Hildegard of Benin, she was born in 1098
and she lived until 1179. But she was an early
German woman who wrote initially about medicinal
heating and cooling for food, herbs, disease,
even disease treatment, right? So disease spreads,
and we know this from John Gorey. disease spreads
if it gets hot most of the time that's the best
way for it to spread so if we don't allow it
to as they would say back then fester and we
can keep it cool um there's a lot more time to
treat it right and so she did a lot of research
on that and she ended up i just thought this
was cool because she ended up being recognized
as saint hildegard von binion and i think that's
awesome to saint somebody who in those times
probably was frowned upon for her research you
know um a scientist of the time yeah And in more
Spain, the other one I wanted to get into was
kind of outdoor ventilation. So we don't think
about this a lot in terms of HVAC, but it happens
in a lot of spaces throughout the world. So in
more Spain, in the Middle Ages, the women of
wealthy households would manage quanats. And
what quanats are is underground water channels.
So these water channels would run cool water
through them, and then wind towers would work
with them in order to keep that. breeze i guess
that they're creating down towards the bottom
of the courtyard so these courtyards you would
walk into them from the street and you would
be noticeably cooler they would literally just
whisk that heat away from you and i just thought
that was such a really cool cool little thing
And then obviously we have Emily du Chatelet
and she was in France in the 1700s. She translated
Newton and she studied heat, energy and motion,
foundational physics, right? That eventually
fed into thermodynamics, which made her one of
the first women to theorize energy transfer.
To theorize energy transfer, just a Renaissance
woman in France. Yeah. We think of Newton, right?
We don't think of the woman that's sitting in
her castle, right? And then another really great
one that I wanted to bring up was from the 1800s
to the present. There's a couple that I really
want to talk about here because there's some
that everybody knows about that they may not
know something about. But a really great one
is Margaret Wilcox. Oh, sure. Born in 1838. Died
in 1912. She created the first patent in HVAC
in 1893 for a carriage or car heating system
that diverted energy heat into the cabin. So
we're talking 1893 and we're talking about reheat,
right? We're talking about harnessing reheat.
That's crazy. And it's not a man that's sitting
there, you know, how can we use these motors
and steel? No, it's a woman. that is cold in
her carriage so she writes this incredible patent
moving forward from her we have mary angle pennington
and mary uh margaret ingalls right two of my
absolute favorites these are two of my my i would
say historical men okay right i want to be just
yes women So Margaret Engel Pennington, obviously,
was a chemist and a refrigeration engineer. Pennington
began her scientific training in the 1890s. So
women were not supposed to be in STEM in the
1890s. Yep, absolutely. By 1895, she was already
experimenting with food preservation through
cooling. And later, into the 1920s, she became
the refrigeration pioneer of the U .S. Department
of Agriculture, designing refrigerated rail cars.
Isn't that crazy? Amazing. Refrigerated rail
cars. And at this time, I mean, this woman was
in her 70s, 80s and 90s. It really sparked the
entire movement of us moving and migrating to
the West. A lot of people don't realize that
refrigeration is what allowed us to be able to
move to the West. And she was very fundamental
in those early refrigerated boxcars. Oh, for
sure. I mean, we couldn't have moved any of our
humans to the West, but we definitely couldn't
have moved any supplies to the West without refrigeration.
We would have starved to death. And many did
because they didn't weren't able to utilize it.
Right. They didn't have the money. And then Margaret
Ingalls, of course, anybody who doesn't know
Margaret Ingalls, go and research her, please,
because she's just an absolutely fantastic character
in this world of HVAC that we have. She was born
in 1892. She died in 1971. So when we think of
the 1800s, we think it was a really, really long
time ago. And it really wasn't. This woman died
in 1971. And through her HVAC engineering breakthroughs,
she was able to. move a lot more women into the
STEM field. So she was unique in her situation
where she was not afraid of anything or seemingly
wasn't. She was very brave. And what she did
was she brought a whole lot of other women. into
this so that she wouldn't be the only one. And
I've really modeled HVHX Coalition after Margaret
Ingalls because of that. I think that having
that female community really matters, especially
in male -dominated trades, but also men need
that too. Men need that community with women
as well. So she symbolizes how women's access
to formal engineering education at the century's
end prepared to shape the modern HVAC world.
So if without Margaret Ingalls going to school
for engineering, it would probably have been
a lot harder when I got in to have done the same.
I agree. And now I want to lead into one of the
absolute legendary women in HVAC, Miss Alice
Parker. There's a lot more about Alice Parker
than people know. So she invented, in 1919, she
invented patent number US -1325907A. And what
that is, is the original patent for the gas -powered
furnace. Her patent didn't work. Let me just
start by saying that. Her patent didn't work.
how we need it to now. It didn't work to kind
of trigger that modern furnace that we have today,
but it was the first working pack. Yes, yes.
And it's awesome. If you haven't seen the pictures,
you guys go look it up because it absolutely
would work, but it works in a way that you would
teach about, not necessarily that you would use.
But by the use of natural gas, we were using
coal and wood. back then i mean look at the titanic
sunk you know back in the early 1900s we were
using coal and wood back then not natural gas
um and then so her central furnace system provided
heat throughout the entire home and not just
one room that's another really important thing
so every wood or coal appliance would heat one
space and it was really hard to get it to heat
other spaces but this patent actually did heat
More than one room, which is pretty great. And
she was one of the first to design suggested
separate ducts to direct warm air to different
areas. Not exactly in the best way we could have
designed that. But still, it's the thought process.
Maintaining more comfort within the home. That's
really what it came down to. Yeah. And it's honestly,
when I read about Alice Parker, it makes me really
wonder how many other people thought of that
before, but maybe didn't have the bravery to
say, this is something you should be doing. Yeah.
Yeah. And the other thing about Alice Parker
is completely non -related to age fact, but it's
so interesting. When we think of Alice Parker,
we think of this iconic picture of the woman
with the curly pinned back hair and she's kind
of sideways looking at the camera. And that picture,
that iconic picture is not Alice Parker. That's
crazy. It's not Alice Parker. Alice Parker was
an African -American woman. And so though we
know that. Men want to showcase African -American
women, especially not in STEM, especially not
with such a grandiose innovation. So they actually
took one of her neighbors, a picture of one of
her neighbors, a white woman, and they showcased
it. They put this in textbooks. They put this
picture of this other woman that kind of resembled
Alice Parker, if she were white, in textbooks.
They put it everywhere. And it was not until
one of her descendants, one of her family members,
came out and said, They were, I believe Alice
Parker was winning an award. I believe she was
winning like one of her many awards, right? But
it was, you know, long post -mortem. She had
been dead for decades at the time. And her family
member said, that is not Alice Parker. Stop using
that picture. This is my grandmother, great grandmother,
whatever it was. And so now the picture of. the
real Alice Parker, they've kind of positioned
it in that same way. So you can line them up
side by side, which I did do in my presentation,
but we're not showing that today. But yeah, she's
very much an African American woman who was kind
of stripped of her culture in order to innovate.
So not only was she a minority as far as her
gender, as far as her race, but also was just
completely oppressed by the entire United States
over this. And to To have her make such strides
in such a crazy male -dominated field at the
time and then have her entire identity stripped
from her other than her name, that is something
that I think that was the trigger, right? To
say, maybe as a whole, as a community, as a society,
we have to just let things be. things the things
that they are and because of that because of
you know not only alice parker making this invention
but also her descendants saying no no no we're
not going to allow this picture to be circulated
anymore this is the real alice parker that really
paved the way for other african -american women's
to say hey maybe somebody will stand up for me
and and if we look back in history there are
probably thousands more heating and air inventions
that were invented by directly by women but what
happened is when they documented those and you
know the scientific magazines and in the innovative
newspapers and all these things it would just
say this man invented it right along with mrs
and it wouldn't leave a name this this was the
way that they got around this if a woman invented
something they would say her husband and mrs
came up with this idea. And over years and years
and years and years, the man's name was dominant,
right? It was just spread everywhere like wildfire.
And the missus was never printed to begin with.
So lots of people didn't know who was married
to that man, let alone who the actual person
was, who invented it. So if we look back in history,
there's probably a whole lot more women in HVAC
stories we could tell. But for now, this is kind
of what we have. And I did want to just kind
of bring it to the present, Cliff. because that's
what we don't talk about, right? We don't talk
about women in HVAC now. And that's a catch -22,
because we're also always talking about women
in HVAC now. When we talk about men in HVAC,
we're talking about specified men, specific men.
What are they doing? What is their accomplishments?
What is their roster of things that they've done
in the industry? When we talk about women in
HVAC, we say those words, women in HVAC. And
we don't typically... single one individualized
accomplishments right exactly and so i i try
to do that every time i do one of these so for
you getting to kind of i guess like the the 2000s
we'll say okay yep so one really and i mean there
are hundreds of these women that i could single
out but we'd be here all day and we've got you
know 10 more minutes so we've got nora magaro
from from kenya this is one of my favorite stories
she is a woman from kenya and she grew up in
a very poor village and realized that there was
a need and the need was for portable solar -powered
refrigerators in order to traipse vaccines around
the african you know landscape and so she decides
i'm going to work with whatever foundations i
can i'm going to work with whoever will will
give me the time of day because she doesn't have
a soapbox to stand on right so she just has to
take help from wherever she can and what she
ended up doing was she invented the vaxa box
and the vaxa box is now widely used absolutely
yeah almost every i mean almost every single
vaccination um company and the ones that distribute
them to Africa, all use these Vaxaboxes now.
Sure. But they're solar powered. They're a solar
powered refrigerator. So my question is, someday,
will Nora's invention be translated to the home?
And will we no longer need energy other than
the sun to run our HVAC units? And who knows?
Because look at what Alice Parker did, right?
Who knows? And then another one of note is Miss
Amy O 'Grady. right from the usa the executive
director of women in hvacr um don't quote me
on this but i believe that amy was also the first
full -time executive director of women in hvacr
um Yeah, I believe I read that as well. So she
leads the national initiatives, obviously, in
membership, education, workforce development
to increase female representation in the HVAC
trades. She is an icon. I do not know her personally,
but she is one of the women that I very much
look up to today and in the present day. And
then we have Holly Paper. Holly Paper is from
the USA. She was appointed in 2024 as the first
female president of Trane's commercial HVAC division.
And she is a legend. Man, is she a legend. Outspoken,
very, very strong leadership within this woman.
And I think that she doesn't necessarily have
the community where she's at because she's one
of the only, right, one of the only. presidents
of a commercial HVAC division at a major manufacturer.
That's a woman. But I think she's really awesome.
And the impact that she's made is pioneering
female leadership in one of the largest HVAC
corporations in the US. Also, she serves on one
of the boards, on a lot of the boards, and one
of them is AHRI. So she's a very smart, very
intelligent woman that really deeply cares passionately
about HVAC. And I just thought that that was,
those were a couple of women that really should
be shared and talked about. Yeah. And social
influencer, Jennifer Manzo. How can you forget
about that? I mean, this is all possible because
you're out here spreading the good word in society.
And yeah, we're grateful to have you. Thanks,
Cliff. There's lots of them. And it's really
funny because I was looking on chat GPT for some
that I may not have known about. And I popped
up on chat GPT. As you should. I just was like,
are you kidding me? But yeah, influencers, right?
So now it's always been get our foot in the door.
If you look at everything I've just said, it's
always been get the female foot in the proverbial
HVAC door. And now we're here. And not only are
we here, but we're widely accepted. I mean, customers,
yeah, we might have a little trouble here and
there. But as a whole, and when I say I had a
terrible entrance into HVAC being a female because
of my gender. But once I got here and really
reached out for community, I've received nothing
but. absolute acceptance and love and dedication
and encouragement and i think um Now the point
is not getting in the door. Now is getting everybody
through that door, holding it wide open and getting
as many young females as possible, even not young
females. If you like working with your hands,
come and join the HVAC trade. Have you heard
about our Lord and Savior HVAC? Because you will
make good money, you will have great benefits,
and you will leave something for your children
that maybe you wouldn't have been able to before.
I know I wouldn't have. And then on top of that,
now we have this crazy thing called the internet.
Now we're not just standing on that soapbox or
relying on these magazines to, you know, take
the misses off of our name. We're not we're not
relying on the scientific papers to say that
we actually are worth something. Now we have
the Internet that says every single one of us,
as long as we can work together, we can do this
trade. We can make money and we can we can further
this trade. Right. We can progress this trade
into the industrial. beast that it needs to be.
So women like Jess Bannister, right? HVAC Jess.
She is dragging probably tens of women in every
week, I would say, just based on her content
alone. I know I was one of them. I was one of
them. So I can honestly say that she is doing
a killer job. She's Canadian. She's part of Canadian
Women in HVAC. She's a great content creator.
She's an apprentice. She works for her dad's
company. She's out there in the field every day.
She's amazing. And then we have, you know, obviously
Renee from ESCO. in the education without renee
and renee is gonna like she's gonna be like she's
like you're talking about me in a podcast what
are you doing i can't say enough about renee
would i have dared to teach at esco last year
probably not would i have said you know i could
reach a level of edu in the education space that
i have reached without renee having already done
it probably not that's about that representation
when women see other women doing great things
we want to join in right so yeah i just uh i
wanted to to bring a little bit of the female
razzle dazzle to the show but also to thank esco
for their absolute inclusion of women i mean
there is really no bigger entity including women
in the hvac space right now so thank you guys
We're so grateful for it. And you know, you're
right. I wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for
Renee. Honestly, my career would not be doing
what it is doing if it wasn't for Renee. It was
her idea for me to join the team and to do social
awareness for ESCO and to do the live show and
podcast. I mean, it is literally, it is the brains
behind what we're doing. And so, yeah, I am so
glad that you spent some time with us diving
into the history as well as the present with
women and HVACR and just the trades in general.
And I look forward to a lot of these conversations.
I hope it opens people's minds. eyes a little
bit and went, man, I guess I've been, I've been
missing this boat for a long time. And I'm glad
that I know a little bit more now. Yeah, I agree.
Cool. Well, thank you so much for joining us.
We appreciate you taking the time to hang out
and I look forward to seeing you soon. Of course.
Thanks Cliff.