Amy O’Grady went from the fashion industry to an effective contractor and leader in the heating and cooling industry 

Women in HVACR (WHVACR), a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration trades, today announced it has appointed industry sales and marketing expert and licensed HVAC contractor Amy O’Grady as its first executive director.

O’Grady brings more than 13 years of experience as a licensed contractor, sales and marketing director and events manager to the WHVACR family. She also served four years as the executive director for the North Florida Air Conditioning Contractors Association (NFACCA).

“Women in HVACR has always been a completely volunteer-only organization, but since we now offer such a long list of networking events, educational programs and scholarship funds to our members, we needed someone on our permanent staff to manage all the good work that we do,” said 2024 WHVACR President Lori Tschohl. “With her background in the HVAC industry and executive director leadership, Amy brings a unique blend of creativity and strategic vision to our organization. We are confident she will provide the necessary oversight to help our board achieve its goals and take Women in HVACR to new heights.”

O’Grady is a graduate of Florida State University with a bachelor’s degree in textiles and consumer sciences. After starting her career as a product developer and assistant buyer in the fashion industry, O’Grady began honing her leadership skills in business development, marketing and event planning as a  marketing manager for a regional grocery chain and for Charlie’s Tropic Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. in Atlantic Beach, Florida.

“It was during my tenure as marketing director for Charlie’s Tropic that I discovered my passion for the HVAC industry and entrepreneurship,” O’Grady said. “I was able to modernize the company’s identity by crafting unique content and developing data-driven marketing programs to stay on top of the ever-changing digital market.”

She also reached a significant milestone at the HVAC company by becoming a licensed contractor, which helped her master her craft and put her on her current career trajectory.

Her next position was as the executive director for the NFACCA, where she demonstrated her adaptability and willingness to learn new skills. She spent more than four years in this role before accepting the position at WHVACR.

“My role at NFACCA certainly helped prepare me for the job I’m taking on at Women in HVACR,” she said. “I look forward to bringing my industry knowledge to our team so that I can help this organization grow and create a dynamic environment that inspires more women to start careers in the skilled trades.”

For more information about Women in HVACR, visit www.womeninhvacr.org/.

Budderfly, the premier sustainability partner for businesses with repeatable footprints, today announced a strategic partnership with Fujitsu General America, to develop and deploy high-efficiency energy technologies for mid-market businesses across the United States.

Under the terms of the agreement, Budderfly will leverage Fujitsu’s AIRSTAGE Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) systems as the core component for its Ultra High Performance (UHP) heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) architecture. The state-of-the-art heat pump and ventilator-separated system is the most advanced HVAC solution specifically designed for the approximately 94 percent of U.S. commercial buildings under 50,000 square feet.

The UHP HVAC system is an energy-efficient solution to replace conventional and outdated Roof Top Unit (RTU) HVAC systems, reducing a building’s energy consumption by as much as 70 percent. Fujitsu expects to deliver a large number of AIRSTAGE VRF Systems to Budderfly in the coming year, scaling year-over-year to service Budderfly’s robust customer pipeline.

In addition, Budderfly and FGAI will collaborate to innovate further and develop on-site, cloud-based sensing and control technologies that will unlock end-to-end digital transformation for small- and medium-sized businesses.

“As much as 50 percent of the energy businesses consume is attributed to HVAC systems. As electricity prices and sustainability standards rise, we’re excited to partner with Fujitsu General to help businesses reimagine their energy profile and better their bottom line,” said Al Subbloie, chief executive officer and founder of Budderfly. “Fujitsu’s AIRSTAGE Systems are designed to meet the wide range of energy needs for commercial buildings, making them the ideal solution to seamlessly integrate into our end-to-end energy management offering.”

Budderfly’s innovative UHP HVAC system decouples the conventional RTU HVAC into two components: an energy recovery ventilator and a variable refrigerant flow system. The energy recovery ventilator brings in outside air while also recovering energy from exhaust air.  Fujitsu’s  AIRSTAGE system cools or heats the ventilated air based on the needs of the space and boosts overall air quality by improving humidity control, directing airflow, increasing oxygen levels, and lowering total volatile organic compounds (TVOCs). This provides a fully-electric system that eliminates the need for natural gas and is half the size of a traditional HVAC rooftop unit.

“Our partners at Budderfly share in our core mission of unlocking a better, more sustainable future,” said Tomokazu Hosoi, president of Fujitsu General America. “As pressures mount for buildings to reduce their carbon footprint, we’re combining our energy-efficient technology expertise and Budderfly’s innovative Energy as a Service business model to help accelerate the sustainability transformation for commercial buildings across the U.S.”

To learn more about how Budderfly’s UHP HVAC System transforms business operations, visit: https://case-studies.budderfly.com/dunkin-uhp-case-study

Entries accepted through August 9th

The AHR Expo (International Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition) is now accepting submissions for the 2023 Innovation Awards. Exhibitors are encouraged to enter recent or upgraded products for the competition. Entries are welcomed through August 9, 2022. The 2023 AHR Expo will return to Atlanta at the Georgia World Congress Center February 6-8, 2023. To request more information about the Innovation Awards, or to receive forms for entry, please email Kim Pires at kpires@iecshows.com.

“If Vegas is any indicator of what’s ahead for HVACR then Atlanta will certainly be an impressive showing,” said show manager Mark Stevens. “Our ten category winners and 2022 Product of the Year winner, Danfoss, blew us away with innovative solutions that demonstrate just how revolutionary the technology within this industry is becoming. It’s really a remarkable gauge of just how fast this industry is moving,” continued Stevens.

The Innovation Awards aim to honor the most inventive, useful and original products, systems and technologies in the marketplace. Exhibitors are encouraged to submit products and technologies to showcase solutions for new and existing challenges and new avenues for industry growth.

Once submitted, all entries are evaluated by a panel of third-party ASHRAE members with over 20 years of professional engineering experience. The panel uses a review process to tally points based on application, innovation, value and market impact. Winners are then selected in ten industry categories, including building automation; cooling; heating; indoor air quality; plumbing; refrigeration; software; sustainable solutions; tools and instruments; and ventilation. An overall Product of the Year will be selected from the pool of category winners and will be announced at the show in Atlanta.

The Innovation Awards as an investment in our workforce

In 2022 AHR Expo introduced a workforce development program in which entry fees from the Innovation Awards program were used to support a local dual-HVAC high school. With the success of the awards in Vegas, AHR Expo was able to donate $25,000 directly to the program as well as host 25 students for a field trip on the show floor. In 2023, AHR Expo aims to work with the Atlanta Public School district to award donation funds to a similar program, with the hopes of growing into other areas of service within HVAC including computer programming and engineering.

“This industry is special,” said Stevens. “If you’ve been to the AHR Expo you understand the feeling of community and connectedness−even more now than ever coming out of the challenging years behind us.

“We are poised to build a fantastic future with HVACR leading the transformation of our built environment. The Innovation Awards lend a preview of this and it is encouraging to see how we are moving forward as an industry. Manufacturers continue to exceed expectations by showing up, making improvements and pushing forward; and while we award only ten companies, we see hundreds in our submissions. We can’t wait to see what’s to come in Atlanta,” concluded Stevens.

How to enter the 2023 Innovation Awards

The awards extend an opportunity for manufacturers to validate their dedication and hard work with strategy, planning, execution and market realization through the recognition of the industry’s most prestigious award. Winners are encouraged to learn more about the awards and view the 2022 winners on the Innovation Awards webpage. All applicants can submit their entries via the dedicated portal. The deadline for entry is August 9, 2022. Questions can be directed to Kim Pires at kpires@iecshows.com.

There are many benefits to participation, including:

• Winners and finalists will be recognized at the 2023 show with special booth signage
• Finalists will be announced on social channels one week before winner announcements, extending the opportunity for exposure longevity
• All winners will be invited to celebrate with their colleagues and industry leaders at a closed reception
• Winners will be interviewed for a custom video months before the show and will be featured on the AHR Expo website and social media channels, as well as in industry media coverage
• Winners will be encouraged to promote their win on their communication channels

Registration for the 2023 AHR Expo is open and available on the AHR Expo website.

Attendees are also encouraged to sign up for the show newsletter to receive updates as they happen.

ABOUT THE AHR EXPO

The AHR Expo is the essential event for HVACR professionals, attracting the most comprehensive gathering of the industry from around the globe each year. The show provides a unique forum where manufacturers and suppliers of all sizes and specialties come together to share ideas and showcase the future of HVACR technology. Since 1930, the AHR Expo has remained the industry’s best place for OEMs, engineers, contractors, facility operators, architects, educators and other industry professionals to experience everything new in HVACR and build relationships. The AHR Expo is co-sponsored by ASHRAE and AHRI and is held concurrently with ASHRAE’s Winter Conference. The next show will take place February 6-8, 2023, in Atlanta.

For more information, visit ahrexpo.com and follow on Twitter and Instagram.

Bob Clark, College of DuPage (COD) Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration (HVACR) program chair, has spent the last six years transforming the community college’s HVACR program and its interactive learning lab, built from within.

GLEN ELLYN, IL—When you sit down with Bob Clark and talk about training and education, he will not hold back about any aspect of his program, and his direction on post-secondary education. Clark started at the school with a nearly “empty” space and a vision. “In order to create an unmatched lab, you have to orchestrate a vision that people can believe in for your program. When you establish that vision with your industry partners and your instructors, now you have a vision that is ‘bigger than yourself.’” So Clark, his instructors and his students built an interactive classroom and lab environment that is changing HVACR education.

The first time I visited with Bob Clark in 2017, he gave me a birds-eye view of the HVACR lab.

The HVACR lab was built from within—all of the teachers oversaw the lab being built by the students. “We built our own lab and we built our own central plant. The central plant project is going to be one of the most defining features of our lab. It is sized and designed so that we have exhibit a well-designed system, but we also have the ability to duress on every part of the system. We wanted a system that could demonstrate what happens in a building on a good day, a bad day and under extreme conditions. We have the capability to demonstrate primary/secondary, primary/variable or constant flow systems, which can flow in both direct and reverse return. Our lab concepts can experience multiple scenarios for critical systems that can not normally be studied. It’s not like any other system,” says Clark.

On the floor in the lab, Clark shows that while in the lab, one can experience multiple scenarios for critical systems that can not normally be studied.

This isn’t about me, says Clark, it’s about, “how we help this community and our industries succeed at growing their organizations with the right people?” It’s by building the greatest technicians that the program can yield. For example, “Our hydronic classes go through design, friction loss, and they also have to understand engineering concepts. There are very few programs teaching hydronics. You have to teach from a systems thinking mindset and get students to think within very complex systems. We have hands-on classes, not PowerPoints and some donuts for our classes.”

“Your mind is the only thing that separates you from every other technician out there—the most important tool you have is your brain. This field is about your mind.”

When you look at HVAC programs nationally, Clark bets the average age in post-secondary education—community colleges for HVAC programs—is 30 years old. “Most technical eduction funding is channeling into automotive, manufacturing and welding programs across the United States. Most high school counselors, career advisors and parents do not know how challenging, how complex, and how much the HVACR industry pays. The skilled workforce in America is losing its ranks and I do not believe that education understands or cares about its decline. It is sad that they will start to get it only when their homes are cold in the winter and their refrigerators stop working. It is a sad day in education when we care more about guiding children toward psychology, than towards meaningful, good paying, plentiful, and rewarding careers in the skilled workforce. This reminds me of how Rome fell: skilled workforce ceased to be a priority.”

The “hands-on” lab is important for later work in the field (such as working with these wall-hung boilers.)

According to Clark, the industry is lacking accountability in education systems. “How are skilled workforce programs being supported across the country?  The people that want to pursue skilled trades do not even know about the programs that exist because counselors and advisors are not instructed to communicate all of the opportunities available in the public school systems. Students that attend community colleges are trying to change their lives while working a full-time job.

“Do you want to be bucket boy or do you want to pay attention in here and get yourself a career because your mind is the only thing that separates you from every other technician out there—the most important tool you have is your brain. This field is about your mind,” says Clark.

Clark says he’s tried multiple ways to see how you can use theory to communicate into the technical and “it’s impossible until they get down in the lab and experience failure and success.”

In the lab, students will learn to hold the wrench the right way, back up the pipe wrench correctly, how to screw stuff together, experience special aptitude and understand system dynamics, among other things.

The program is teaching them mastery because HVACR is filled with a multitude of skills and the lab has been built to simulate multiple areas. “I do this because HVACR is a field that you can study the rest of your life and still never get it. Students need to learn to hold the wrench the right way, back up the pipe wrench correctly, how to screw stuff together, experience special aptitude, understand system dynamics, and if they don’t experience it, they won’t get it. It always makes me smile when I see a light come in a student because I know that their education is finally beginning,” says Clark.

While the learning lab is the “jewel” of the program, classroom learning is just as important, taking technical theory and applying in into the lab downstairs.

The difference between here and anywhere else, says Clark, is that the program has four to five classes in the lab running Monday through Thursday night.  Their classes have a capacity of 16 students, “It’s packed. I won’t go above 15-16 because anyone that teaches an HVACR class with 25 people and thinks they are going to run a respectable lab with integrity is basically a moron. This is a highly technical field with a lot of equipment that can kill you. People that think that they can PowerPoint HVACR into a student’s mind are lazy and delusional. Running an effective lab is ten times harder than delivering the presentation of your life.”

When Clark arrived at the school nearly six years ago, the space that the lab currently occupies was for the most part empty. The students built the lab and all of the piping was installed during the transformation phase.

Clark also says that holding accountability over his adjuncts is critical. “That’s why we have the best instructors. Our instructors know the importance of the lab environment,” says Clark. “The second you don’t understand that, you are violating the integrity of the whole program.”

You can hear the passion in his voice. He is proud of his work and his ability to mold people into working HVAC technicians. And the lab is his oyster. “At the end of the day, our students build our labs. And nobody will ever take that shit away from us. That was the concept: How do you make a statement to the industry? This is it,” says Clark.