Editor's Notes: Anthony Carbone

Many trade organizations are rethinking the way they continue to operate. With COVID in the picture, many industry execs. have turned to Zoom Board Meetings. This facilitates the process of board meetings, but curtails a lot of the dynamics of being in-person.

It is important to keep the organization going from the business point of view. The connectivity part between members is on hiatus as many are fearful of gathering in-person due to the transmission of the virus. This puts a burden on the finances of our organization, as many of our events do generate revenue for the group.

So many organizations are trying to reinvent themselves with webinars and Zoom meetings with speakers. This lacks the comradery that comes from in-person meetings. It is an attempt to continue to provide value to our members.

We will continue to bring information and value to our organization with our newsletter. It is our consistent message to our members.

The “beat on the street” is that the commercial contractors are having a difficult time as many buildings do not have employees in them. The pace is slow, the overhead is high.

On the converse, the residential contractors are busy because many people are working from home. They want new heating systems that are reliable. Some home offices are getting ductless split units and the utility is providing rebates for heat-pump models. Things are evolving quickly with a new way of going to business.

Meanwhile, the backlash against PSEG is significant in regards to the handling of the massive power outages experienced on Long Island. Many are questioning the overall quality of the Grid as they claim to have upgraded the infrastructure since Superstorm Sandy. The communication part to consumers was considered to be abominable by PSEG.

I guess they weren’t so “Worry Free” after all!

Keep watching MACC for up-to-date information, stay safe and. . . be careful!

Anthony Carbone

Systematic Control Corp.

Editor's Notes: Jason Staiano

In the last edition of the MACC newsletter, I discussed my thoughts on the tradeshows/ expos and how the coronavirus has impacted them by so many postponing or going virtual. It’s now safe to say that these in-person shows are not coming back until at least mid-2021 or even 2022.

I think a good litmus test will be how the AHR Expo handles this. For those not familiar with the AHR Expo, it is the largest HVACR show in the country. It is now the last week of September and they made the decision to postpone the show that was to take place at the end of January. It is still up in the air if they are going to move it to March, if not, then it will not return until the year 2022. We don’t need to rehash my thoughts on virtual trade shows as I discussed it in the last newsletter. But I do feel shows like these not being held are certainly unfortunate. Besides the loss to companies that rely on them to generate sales leads, the educational factor is truly a great loss to the industry. You are able to stay up to date on new technology, industry standards and so on at these shows and events.

I think a great upside to the current situation is to get more involved in the local associations, such as MACC. At MACC we might not be having in person meetings yet, but we are having online events, webinars, content added to our website, our private Facebook forum, and of course our newsletter. The time that you would have spent traveling to the Expos around the country and the loss of knowledge you would have gained by being at them, you can now apply some of that saved time and gain some more industry knowledge by getting more involved. Reach out to MACC either through email, phone or post on our Facebook page and let us know what topics you would like us to focus on, from local industry issues to supply chain issues that you are having or educational topics you would like to see discussed. If we work together, we can come out of this adverse situation better than we came into it. We can start getting more involved right now by going to our private Facebook forum and taking the poll that I recently posted.

Thanks,

Jason Staiano

National Compressor Exchange, Inc.

Featured in MACC News Fall 2020, Volume 1