This month you’ll be hearing from IIAR about one of our most important annual activities, our membership renewal drive. As an IIAR member, we all depend on you to take that essential first step to participate in the activism and advocacy of our industry, by keeping your membership current.

I’d like to use my column this month to invite you to renew your IIAR membership. If you are not yet a member, this is a great time to join. Through the dedication and commitment of members like you our organization has continued to evolve and grow in response to the technology and regulatory changes in our business environment.

And we have been very active in developing the new products and resources it takes to support such dynamic change. The IIAR has made substantial progress in the development of safety standards, technical publications and education programs during the 2017- 2018 member year.

First, I’d like to highlight IIAR’s standards development progress. Our membership has been hard at work upgrading the IIAR Suite of Standards in accordance with ANSI certification requirements with continued work on IIAR-2-2014 Addendum A, and the publication of IIAR 1-2017 and IIAR 3-2017. In the new member year we will be working on updates to IIAR 5-2013 and IIAR 7-2013 as well as introducing new standards for inspection, testing and maintenance, CO2 Safety and Design, and RAGAGEP for existing ammonia facilities. The IIAR standards program is significant as these standards provide guidance to our regulatory agencies by establishing the standard reference for all major fire and safety building codes around the country.

Meanwhile, we’re in the public review phase for the new IIAR-6 Maintenance, Inspection and Testing Standard, and we’re beginning the ANSI 5-year review cycle for IIAR-2.

As you can see, we have many important products coming online this year, and your membership will be essential as you access each of these resources.

I’m especially excited to announce that the compliance committee just finished a rewrite of the ARM manual and voted to release the ARM-LC, geared toward small and low charge systems. IIAR is also in the process of reviewing and rewriting the PSM/ RMP and the Ammonia Databook, with plans to publish the updated piping handbook very soon.

This year is also a significant year for our education program. IIAR’s Academy of Natural Refrigerants just introduced its first PSM/RMP course. The education committee will introduce four to five new courses in 2018 before the end of the year, among them the “specialist program,” a long-term certificate program for members to use to build their professional credentials.

When it comes to the regulatory landscape, there’s never been a more important time to get involved as an IIAR member. The EPA is now considering writing new rules to manage the refrigerants that have a global warming impact. Not only will IIAR be commenting on the new rules, we’ll be working closely with OSHA, EPA and DHS to review existing rules and regulations around ammonia.

Finally, IIAR is also expanding the conference technical program to include a new, second, conference technical paper track. The new tech paper program will address commercial light industrial and food retail applications for CO2 and ammonia.

I’m also happy to report that IIAR’s international education and outreach effort is continuing this year with an expanded translation program, for Spanish and Mandarin, including a new Spanish bimonthly webinar series for training, and five educational symposiums slated to be delivered in the Americas in 2018.

As always, I encourage everyone to participate in IIAR on our various volunteer committees, and to take advantage of the many new member benefits coming this year. When you belong to the IIAR Community, your voice adds impact to our Industry. I’m looking forward to working with you again in the 2018-2019 member year, and I invite you to renew your membership today!