What is going on with the unitary air conditioning companies this year? Trane sells off the American Standard plumbing business and then is taken over by Ingersoll-Rand. Goodman is bought by another holding company.

I have seen and experienced several business cycles in our industry in the last 30 years. None of them have been fun but this time something is different. The residential HVAC market has been sliding for several months, no thanks to the housing market downturn but the industry hasn’t hit the panic button.

I was struck by something while attending another annual Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) meeting (I attended my first in 1983). There are a lot of great people in this industry! Not because of what they do but because of who they are.

I just saw a comment from a visitor to www.achrnews.com that accused our magazine of being “a shill for the manufacturers.” I think he was only partially correct. He should have said The NEWS is a “shill” for the industry and I would have been honored.

Everywhere I travel these days I see green. At the HARDI convention, there were seminars on the Energy Star “whole-house” program and a new LEEDS Certification program for residential new construction.

Too many people think that contractors have not embraced the Internet. Let me beg to differ with you. The NEWS recently completed a research study on Internet usage and you might be shocked by the results.

With the current focus on climate change, enterprising manufacturers, or contractors, should be taking advantage of the current consumer “climate” by really getting behind R-410A refrigerants, or high SEER units, etc.

In the second of a series of Special Reports, leaders of three commercial manufacturing companies met with John Conrad, publisher, and Mike Murphy, editor-in-chief of The NEWS to discuss green building.

"Climate control has become a highly skilled trade, but it remains hard for the industry to attract young people.” John Conover, president of Trane in the Americas, set the tone for this Special Report, as he captured what is often referred to as the No. 1 challenge the HVACR industry faces.

Nordyne invited their Westinghouse, Tappan, and Frigidaire distributors ‘south of the border' to focus their attention on the value of brand marketing in the new 13 SEER world. In keeping with the theme of the meeting, the company changed the name of Los Cabos to "Brandville."