Experts on wholesaling, security and distribution are among those scheduled to appear at HARDI’s Focus conference next month in Baltimore.

With a sessions geared around operations and logistics issues, the Heating, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International has booked six speakers for its Sept. 20-22 meeting at the Royal Sonesta Harbor Court.

The scheduled speakers are:

?Barry Brandman, CEO of Danbee Investigations, an expert on company security. He has been a consultant for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

?Bob Heaney, a wholesale, retail and e-commerce expert and an analyst at Aberdeen Group.

?Frank Hurtte is a 30-year wholesale HVAC market industry veteran who has published several articles.

?Joe Brady is a senior partner and principal with Supply Chain Edge with 25 years in sales and marketing whose client list includes Carrier Corp., Rheem Manufacturing, Wal-Mart, Eckerd Drug, Kimball International, Sara Lee, Revlon and Johnson & Johnson. 

?Jon Melchi, HARDI’s government affairs director.   

?Mark Richards, an active member of industry groups such as the Warehousing Education & Research Council and the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals.

HARDI CEO Talbot Gee said the meeting should be a good one.

“We created the Focus conference series to specifically address four critical factors to the strategic success of distributors and their suppliers,” Gee said. “Since launching this format, we’ve seen more than 100 percent growth in distributor company attendance which tells us we’re on the right track. The largest, most sophisticated companies in wholesale distribution have recognized and capitalized on the science of distributor operations and logistics, and our leadership sees this area as one of the greatest opportunities for all HARDI distributors to improve their bottom lines, customer service, and scalability. That is exactly what we intend to achieve at this year’s operations and logistics conference.”

Details are at www.hardinet.org/focus15.