ACHR NEWS Editorial Staff

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Loran Liu is the new chairman of the Heating, Air-conditioning & Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) board of directors.

Liu, a member of the HARDI board since 2021, is COO at Standard Supply & Distributing Co., which is based in Dallas. At HARDI, he succeeds Rhonda Wight, the president of Refrigeration Sales Corp., who had led the board for two years.

Liu was formally selected as chairman at the recent 2023 HARDI conference in Phoenix, which drew more than 1,900 people.

In an interview, Liu had praise for his predecessor.

"Under the leadership of Ronda Wight, we've done a much better job of staying focused, maybe even recalibrating our focus, to make sure that we're serving our membership," he said.

Wight was the first HARDI board chair to serve a two-year term. Prior to her taking the role, the term for the board chair had been one year.

By Liu's measure, he is relatively new to HVACR distribution; he's been with Standard Supply since June of 2017. He came to it from executive jobs in the high tech field, in which he worked for about 20 years, and he's also done some management consulting.

"I think I bring a lot of functional expertise that a lot of people in the industry have maybe not been exposed to," he said. "What I mean by that is: How do you view technology enabling your business to become more efficient, more productive? How do you run an effective HR? ... Marketing? Accounting? Finance? Those are areas where I've had exposure, and those functions help our companies operate better in our industry."

At the Phoenix conference, it was also announced that Brian Blaushild, the vice president of business development at Famous Supply, finished his board term, along with Wight. Succeeding them are Todd Shadden, of Century HVAC Distributing, and Layne Miller, of Geary Pacific Supply.

“We can’t thank our outgoing board members enough, as they’ve been vital and welcome leaders in the community. The newest board members, Todd and Layne, will surely do the same, as they’ve already made valuable contributions in their short time on the board,” said Talbot Gee, the HARDI CEO.