The People Behind Cold Summit: Meet Aaron Bass

Introducing the people behind Cold Summit — starting with someone who’s been building in this industry for nearly two decades.

Aaron Bass joined Cold Summit in late 2020 as Director of Construction, and if you’ve spent any time around our projects, you’ve felt his fingerprints on them, even if you didn’t know it. He oversees the execution and delivery of our cold-chain infrastructure builds, which in practice means he’s the person ensuring that what gets designed actually gets built, on time, to spec, and to the standard our clients expect.

Aaron’s path into construction started the way the best ones do, with genuine curiosity. As a kid, he was taking things apart just to understand how they worked. That mechanical instinct turned into a career that began in 2008 as an intern at a Jacksonville-based design-build firm. He spent years in the field as a field engineer and assistant superintendent before moving into project management, working his way from assistant PM all the way to operations manager for a self-performance thermal subcontracting group. By the time he joined Cold Summit, he had 15 years of specialized cold storage and food process construction experience behind him.

One project he’s particularly proud of is our recently completed facility in Savannah, GA. The structural challenges required thinking well outside the box and collaborating with trade partners to develop an innovative approach to supporting blast freezing penthouses in a way that was both technically sound and exactly what the client needed. That combination of problem-solving and client partnership is where Aaron does his best work.

When we asked him to describe the Cold Summit culture, he said:

“It is unlike anything I’ve experienced in my career. We live by our guiding principles: Love, Listen, and Communicate. While many companies use these as slogans, at Cold Summit, they are actionable. I have direct access to leadership and, more importantly, I feel truly heard.”

Outside of work, Aaron is a St. Augustine local through and through. Family comes first — his wife is a former D1 college softball player who coaches their son’s baseball team (he openly admits she holds the title of coolest parent). When they’re not at the ballfield, you’ll find the family on the water, inshore fishing or at the sandbar with friends. And in a past life? Aaron was a drummer in a garage band with his brother and two best friends, playing everything from local parties to church events.

We couldn’t think of a better person to kick off this series.

Over the coming months, we’ll be introducing you to our Cold Summit team members who show up every day to build something better for this industry. Stay tuned.