The New Year is almost here, and for many of us, that means we’re wrapping up projects and getting ready for 2015. At IIAR headquarters, your staff team is hard at work adding the final touches to the annual conference programming and conducting general planning activities for the year ahead.

In fact, one of the most important functions of the IIAR Board of Directors is to set the strategic direction of the association every year. This year, board members met at IIAR headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, to talk about ongoing initiatives and set new goals.

Our international presence was one important theme at our recent meeting, and one of the key outcomes of that meeting last October was that we received the go-ahead from committee chairs and board of directors to move forward with intensifying our efforts to promote a new international chapters program.

Our international strategy encompasses government relations, membership interaction and international publications.

And now, we will be working to help our member representatives from all around the world to get involved in publications translation, to help us promote global membership growth, and to help our international chapters take the lead in developing their own national standards.

Our board meeting also inaugurated our new conference committee, and at the same time, we took the first general steps towards developing CO2 standards.

Meanwhile, our ANSI standard IIAR-2 has entered its third public review and the engagement of IIAR staff, our members, and the IIAR standards committee itself reaffirms that we are at the cutting edge of providing practical, safe and reliable information to this industry.

This is an accomplishment that reflects all the hard work and time of so many of our members and volunteers. Other standards are in review so I encourage you to get involved and help us to make all of our standards the best documents in the industry.

Speaking of standards and other important reference materials, if you work in this field, you owe it to yourself to have the latest technical information. That means making sure you have the complete IIAR library on your desk.

All of the publications represented in the IIAR library are designed to help our members get all the information they need for design and operation excellence. Indeed, not only these materials, but the work of our committees and our conference in March are all resources we have developed with the goal of solving the real-world problems our members face every day.

In addition to the library, we also have a great wealth of information on our website representing years of experience and technical expertise. Take a minute to log on to our members-only section and get familiar with the resources you have as an IIAR member.

We’re constantly working to give you the tools you need to advance the new technologies and create constant improvements in the safety and efficiency of day-to-day operations that are the hallmarks of our industry.

One more topic I’d like to cover in this month’s Chairman’s message is our upcoming annual conference. I am happy and excited to report to you that we are looking forward to delivering another outstanding and record-breaking event in 2015.

This March, in the beautiful city of San Diego, California, we will be bringing you all the latest information on the newest technologies and trends that are shaping our industry. If you want to stay updated and knowledgeable about the latest advancements in industrial refrigeration, the IIAR annual conference truly is a must-attend event.

Over the past twelve months we have done a lot of listening to our members and I believe this year’s conference will reflect our drive to incorporate your insights and suggestions into our conference program.

This year, I’m especially pleased to announce that we will introduce a special global focus with simultaneous translation for technical papers for at least one major additional language in many of our sessions.

With this in mind, I look forward to welcoming you to San Diego to learn, share and build the knowledge base of our industry together. Our conference dates extend from March 22nd to the 25th and our committees meet on the Sunday morning preceding the conference.

New attendees are one of the key markers of the success of our conference programming and we want to do all we can to get you involved and give you a great conference experience.

I would like to extend a special welcome in advance to new members and first-time conference attendees.

As always, we are very thankful for the support of our sponsors and for our members’ continuing high levels of engagement – it is this commitment that will make this another record-breaking year for IIAR.