As we conclude our first in person conference in over three years, I’m excited to introduce myself as your new Board Chairman and tell you that, this year, the opportunities for our organization are huge. In this issue of the Condenser, you’ll read about one of them, the American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act.

The AIM Act lays out regulations promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency that will restrict refrigerants’ allowable global warming potential throughout the United States, and it is expected to increase the long-term use of natural refrigerants.

As your IIAR Chair this year, my major initiative has been to help lead the formation of an AIM Task Force to help learn more about the AIM Act’s requirements and how the association and its members can support the act.

This initiative is one of the most important activities IIAR can take on now. Through the work of this task force, every one of our members is in the position to influence the adoption of natural refrigerants and how they can support the initiatives of the AIM Act and high GWP refrigerant phasedown. To support this new initiative, I want to use my space in this column this month to call on all IIAR members to get vocal about natural refrigerants. Now is the time to educate anyone outside our IIAR membership and our circle of influence. We can teach about our systems by talking about how good they are for the environment; how efficient they are and how safe they can be.

I also want to use this opportunity to thank all our IIAR committees for the day-to-day grunt work they have done to get us to this point. Our safety standards, educational training, and many other activities led by committee members, staff, and our past Chair, Eric Johnston, have set us up well for the effort to come.

In addition to the AIM Act Task Force, I’m excited about several other activities IIAR is pushing forward this year. One of them is a newly created Hydraulic Shock Task Force which will take hydraulic shock research produced by the Natural Refrigeration Foundation, (formerly, the Ammonia Refrigeration Foundation) and incorporate it into IIAR standards, bulletin documentation, and other practical, usable documentation for the everyday operation of our systems.

My hope for the future is that we will be able to use the new Hydraulic Shock Task Force as a model for the conversion of information yielded by other Foundation research projects – into real, actionable information that can be incorporated into IIAR materials to help us design and operate even safer systems.

Another new task force I’m excited to announce is the ANR Certification Task Force. This task force will find ways to incentivize the IIAR Academy of Natural Refrigerants certification program, to make this resource a “must-have” rather than a “nice to have” resource for everyone.

After seven years of development, ANR certification has become one of the most robust educational programs our industry has to offer. Our IIAR members already benefit from this incredible resource, and now is the time to position ANR as one of the best programs for high GWP refrigerant users to learn about natural refrigerants and our systems.

Finally, IIAR’s newly announced membership program will be implemented this year. Our new membership structure will help us grow and expand IIAR membership like never before. All of these things are geared towards the goal of raising the awareness of natural refrigerants, not just in our industry sectors, but beyond, in places and applications where natural refrigerants could help solve some of the world’s biggest environmental challenges.

Coming off our recent conference, I’m energized by seeing many of you for the first time in three years – and I’m certain that momentum will propel us towards some major new accomplishments this year.