People & Places

People The

Victor Hyman Rick Ellul Gord Cooke

The Heating, Refrigeration, and Air

Conditioning Institute of Canada

(HRAI) has announced the winners of its annual President’s Award, Merit Award, and Warren Heeley Environmental Award.

This year, two honourees received the President’s Award—Victor Hyman and Gord Cooke. Hyman is the executive director of ClimateCare, chair of the NRCan Market Transformation Roadmap Space Heating Technology Advisory Team, a member of the CMPX show committee, and a contributor to HRAI’s Greener Homes Program advisory committee. Cooke is the president of Building Knowledge and has been a professional engineer for over 25 years in the residential building industry.

Rick Ellul, regional sales manager of Belimo, received the 2021 HRAI Merit award. The award recognizes individuals that have gone above and beyond to support the growth and success of the association and Canada’s HVAC/R industry. Ellul has served in various roles over his 30-plus years in the field, including as the former HRAI chair.

The Warren Heeley Environmental Award was given to Marie Li-Ying for her significant contributions to environmental services. Li-Ying is the business manager of Flourine products with Honeywell and has devoted countless hours of her time to help Refrigerant Management Canada.

Wolseley Canada has announced the appointment of Jason Bloedow as national director of HVAC. Starting his role as of Jan. 4, Bloedow reports directly to Wolseley president Sebastien Laforge. Joe Senese, vice presJason ident of operations at GDI, Bloedow announces his retirement. A significant contributor to the growth and success of the Deschenes group of companies, Senese spent more than 25 years with the Deschenes team.

The Canadian Institute of Plumbing and Heating Joe Senese

(CIPH) has awarded Senese with its Honorary Life Member award.

Jeff Amlin

Viessmann has announced that as of the beginning of 2022, Jeff Amlin will assume responsibilities as regional manager of Eastern Canada and will work closely with sales agencies in the territories of Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I, and Newfoundland. Randy Stuart will take on the responsibilities as regional manager of Western Canada and will continue Randy to manage the Viessmann Stuart B.C. office and will work closely with sales agencies in Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Northwest Territories, and the Yukon.

CIPH announced that Geeta Persaud will re-join the association’s team as program manager. Persaud’s responsibilities include elevating the support, coordination, planning and execution to ensure the council’s activities move forward in a timely fashion. Persaud has been with CIPH since 2014.

During its 2021 Annual General Meeting, the Mechanical Contractors Association

Wayne Davidson

of Canada (MCAC) announced that Wayne Davidson will be the association’s new president and chairman of the board of directors. MCAC also announces that Jessica Shaver will be joining the team as its membership engagement coordinator. As the newest member of MCAC, Shaver will be responsible for leading MCA Canada’s member engagement strategies, as well as contribute to MCA Canada's overall operations.

Jessica Shaver

Aqua-Tech

has announced that Darryl

Singleton

and Chris Neilson will Darryl be assuming Singleton new roles within the company. With more than 16 years of senior management experience, including a decade of strategic development and plan execution with Aqua-Tech, Singleton has been promoted to president. Singleton served as the national sales manager. Neilson has been appointed as vicepresident of operations. Neilson’s management experience within Aqua-Tech includes acting as the accounting manager and, for the last eight years, as the operations manager.

OS&B has announced that Greg Gillespie has been promoted to business development manager (USA). Gillespie has over 30 years of experience in the industry and has demonstrated qualities in customer solutions, customer Greg service and effective commuGillespie nications.

Chris Neilson

The Companies

On December 31, 2021, Action Furnace successfully completed the acquisition of

Direct Energy Alberta Home Services

businesses from NRG Energy. The acquisition adds over 40 HVAC experts to Action Furnaces’ teams in Calgary and Edmonton, 5,000 membership customers and a database of over 50,000 customers. The Direct Energy Alberta Home Services businesses will continue to operate as a stand-alone business for the next couple of months, and complete integration of the businesses is expected late spring 2022.

Effective Jan. 1, Equipco Ltd. will represent Triangle Tube and assume the sales development responsibilities in Eastern Canada (Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes).

The Master Group Inc. has announced its entry into the United States market via the acquisition of Value Added Distributors (VAD). Headquartered in Midlothian, Virginia, VAD is the parent company of three large regional HVAC distributors, Virginia Air Distributors, Allied HVAC Distributors and South Carolina Air Distributors, with 19 branches and nearly 200 employees in six states (Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ohio, and Pennsylvania).

Rheem announces its acquisition of DeJong, a Dutch manufacturer and supplier of stainless-steel hot water tanks, from Nordian Capital. Founded in 1859, DeJong produces hot water tanks for multiple applications including solar, heat pump, and boiler configurations. DeJong will operate as a stand-alone business unit within Rheem’s Global Water Division.

In Memorium

The Groupe Deschênes Inc. is morning the loss of Jacques Deschênes. He passed away on Jan. 14 at the age of 86 in his home on a beautiful, sunny winter morning. Jacques joined the company in Jacques 1954 and held various Deschênes roles before becoming its third president and general manager in 1973. Under his leadership, he grew the company from a single location in Montreal to 50 across Quebec and Ontario. He held the chairman of the board position for Groupe Deschênes Inc. until 2009 and was honourary chairman until the most recent meeting in December 2021. Funeral details will be announced at a later date.