“Farooq Mehboob ASHRAE Vice President Elect”

Congratulations to Farooq Mehboob in becoming the first Pakistani to be nominated as ASHRAE’s Vice President Elect! And for also serving four years as the first Pakistani on ASHRAE’s Board of Directors as Region AtLarge’s Director and Regional Chair.

Farooq Mehboob, born in Lahore, studied at Convent schools during his early years. After his Cambridge ‘O’ levels, he went to study at Lahore’s Forman Christian College. He graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the East Pakistan University of Engineering Dhaka, Bangladesh in 1965.

Farooq started his career as an Application Engineer with an equipment distributor in Pakistan. In 1968 he joined InterContinental Hotels and was promoted to Regional Chief Engineer for Central Asia in 1978. In 1981 he founded S. Mehboob & Company – Consulting Engineers (a full service MEP Consulting Firm). He still serves as the Principal Consultant of this practice that operates in Pakistan, the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.He has designed many landmark projects with more than 600 projects to his repute, ranging from 60 storey plus buildings, Airports, Campuses, 5-Star Hotels to Industrial Projects. To his acclaim, he is largely responsible for introducing many new technologies to the Pakistan market and Industry standards, with respect to the design, supervision and installation of HVACR Systems. Notably, these include VAV Systems, Integrated BMS, Thermal Storage, Solar Central Hot Water Systems, District Heating and Cooling and Active Chilled beams, to name a few.

Farooq’s interest in thermodynamics led him to the HVACR industry and he joined ASHRAE in 1980.

He was a founder member of the Pakistan HVACR Society where he served on the Executive Council and as its President for two terms from 2005-2009. He has received several awards from the HVACR Society between 2001 and 2009 and has published numerous papers and articles to his credit, including a Lifetime Achievement Award.

He was instrumental in founding the ASHRAE Pakistan Chapter and he carried its petition to ASHRAE President Don Colliver at the 1st RAL ARC in Reading UK in September 2002. He also spearheaded the formation of the other two ASHRAE Chapters in Pakistan.

He has served as President of the ASHRAE Pakistan Chapter, RAL Director and Regional Chair (DRC), Sub Regional Chair (SRC), Regional Vice Chair (RVC) and twice as Assistant Regional Chair (ARC). He served on Society Chapter Technology Transfer Committee for seven years, first as Regional vice Chair and eventually moving on to becoming Committee Chair. He is a member of Technical Committee 1.6, served as Consultant to the Planning Committee; Consultant to the Developing Economies Ad hoc and for the last two years has been serving on the President Elects Advisory Committee (PEAC). He also serves on the ASHRAE’s Development Committee.

Farooq’s tenure as DRC was increased by a further year after the creation of Region XIV from RAL. Despite Region XIV, RAL has grown to 23 Chapters with South Africa being the newest Chapter. At RAL he has worked hard at improving communications and having the voice of Grassroots heard at the Society, enlisting the help of Presidential Members to lead committees on RAL Strategic Planning, Regional Operations and development of Chapters in Africa. He is very passionate about RAL, ASHRAE and Globalization and is proud to have been part of ASHRAE’s first International Board Meeting in Bangkok 2016.

Farooq was made a Fellow of the Society in 2011. He has received many awards from ASHRAE & the Pakistan HVACR Society.

He says, “to me, ASHRAE is my family and friends, a place where color, race, language and politics don’t matter and people respect and regard each other. It’s a model of how the World should be and could be!