With demand for skilled labor projected to reach an all-time high the next decade, the future of the male-dominated building trades rests on the industry’s efforts to roll out the welcome mat for another generation and gender. A new research project, seeking to understand how women thrive in the skilled trades, may pave the way for more people to call the sheet metal industry home.

HVAC airflow problems can make or break a duct system design. After all, the cornerstone of the heating and cooling industry is comfort. Without proper HVAC airflow, comfort goes out the window — pun intended. The end result is a building owner left with a duct system absent its purpose. 

After a conversation at the 2002 AHR Expo, Ruth King and Gwen Hoskins established Women in HVACR with one simple mission: women supporting women. “This conversation between two women was the catalyst for the organization,” explains Karen Lamy DeSousa, Women in HVACR’s 2020 president. 

The City of Nashville, Tennessee, may be the capital of country music, but at Nashville Sheet Metal it is heavy metal all day and all the time. Established in 2003 between longtime sheet metal workers Kevin Elliott and Tracy Cross, the small but mighty shop has quickly made its mark on Music City by diversifying its construction catalog. 

SHEET METAL WORKERS LOCAL 88 TRAINING DIRECTOR Ed Abraham was a third-year apprentice when he started drafting for one of the largest mechanical contractors in Las Vegas, Nevada. 

To complete a boathouse metal roof design in northern Wisconsin last summer, quality design, materials and craftsmanship came together to create an attractive, watertight system. 

Before selling Kenco Industrial Equipment Inc and retiring from the sheet metal industry, Thomas C. Kuschel, who passed away last year at age 85, taught his employees the value of a firm handshake and honest eye contact. 

This month, Advance Machinery/Advance Cutting Systems, founded in 1985, celebrates 35 years as a brand in the sheet metal fabrication business. Here, national sales manager Clinton Ray Jr. explains why that type of longevity doesn’t just happen on its own.

Comments of HARDI and Wood Mackenzie on the coronavirus' potential impact on the economic distribution market. 

The de-escalation of the trade war continues as China hopes to project calm amid a brewing coronavirus storm.