The purpose of the foundation is to raise awareness of the industry, attract new members to the workforce and enhance the quality of the available workforce in the industry.

Throughout the AHR Expo you’ll find many small companies with just one product that is a great idea but might never get noticed any other way.

The recovery continues. For the second consecutive year, Supply House Times’ Premier survey reveals an increase in sales made by PCHP companies. The annual survey, conducted by Supply House Times and BNP Media Market Research, ranks the Top 125 PHCP wholesalers by their sales from the past year.

Tim McElwain runs the Gas Training Institute in Warren, R.I. I don’t think there’s anyone better than Tim when it comes to teaching about gas. He’s been at it for decades and is an industry treasure.

After walking miles and miles through Chicago’s McCormick Place at the 2012 AHR Expo and hitting virtually every HVACR-related booth over a continuous eight hours to the point where I could hardly stand, I welcomed the opportunity on the second day to sit through several programs put on by manufacturers - but I was one of the few. Later in the day, there were only two of us in the room to listen to a couple of very interesting presentations on products that I had missed on my walk the day before.

The family has requested that gifts in memory of Karl Larson be made to the University of Colorado Foundation, in lieu of flowers. Gifts will be used for the Karl Larson HVAC Research Fund.

While attendance was certainly the talk of the 2012 AHR Expo held in late January at McCormick Place in Chicago, an equally great buzz was generated by the many new air-conditioning, heating, and refrigeration products and technologies on display.

I began writing about hydronic systems for Supply House Times’ parent company BNP Media about 16 years ago. Back then, each column was created on a boxy little Macintosh computer with a 9-in. screen, printed on a dot matrix printer and saved on a 3.5-in. floppy disk. Every month, a printed copy of the column along with the floppy disk were mailed to the editors.

Back in my rep days, the vice president of our company was a flashy guy with a gold lion’s head ring the size of a golf ball, an even bigger, fancier watch and a Cadillac that had a three-body trunk. He replaced that car every two years, alternating between an all white one and an all black one.

Last year, at this same time I wrote that experts at the 2011 AHR Expo warned there might be severe refrigerant shortages and price increases due to the lack of a key ingredient, fluorspar from China. Although there have indeed been some drastic price increases, especially when it comes to R22, the shortages simply didn’t happen. Why not? Well, according to one source, everything became available for the right price. Need I say more?