Ammi Amarnath

He leads a team of engineers and scientists in the research, development, deployment and market transformation of Energy Efficiency & Demand Responsive (EE/DR) technologies. Some of the technologies demonstrated include: advanced space conditioning systems for residential and commercial buildings, heat pump water heaters, advanced end-use smart technologies that integrate with the smart grid, and industrial process efficiency improvements. He also manages RD&D activities focused on advanced demand response (DR) applications in Energy-Water Nexus area & renewables integration, and technologies such as OpenADR and SEP. His focus also includes utility analytical techniques, such as energy meter data disaggregation, impact of energy efficiency on emissions etc, so as to make energy efficiency and demand response programs successful around the world.
In his prior tenure at EPRI, Amarnath was a Senior Project Manager within the Industrial and Distributed Generation programs. His activities included the collaborative RD&D of efficient industrial technologies, advanced fuel cells and other distributed generation technologies.
Amarnath received a Bachelor of Engineering degree in chemical engineering from India and a Master of Science degree in chemical engineering from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He also holds a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Houston.

Andy Baker

Andy is a registered professional engineer in Alaska and owner of YourCleanEnergy consulting in Anchorage. He has significant experience in the financial evaluation and design of renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements. He has lived and worked in Alaska since 1998 and has focused for the past fourteen years on identifying and designing cost effective renewable energy systems for commercial, municipal, and community clients. Andy is a graduate in environmental engineering from Penn State University and worked previously as a project engineer for Buchart-Horn in Pennsylvania; Black & Veatch in San Diego, Lusaka, and Boston; and for HDR Alaska.

Andy’s work focus since 2008 has been on ocean source heat pump systems for large facilities, and for ocean source district heating in coastal Alaska. He has worked with the Alaska SeaLife Center in Seward for the past nine years to evaluate, design and monitor a large sea water heat pump system that has now effectively replaced 98% of local fossil fuel use with ocean source heat pumps.  This effort includes the design in 2014 of an 80 ton trans-critical CO₂ heat pump system with heat recovery to offset an existing 500 KW electric boiler used for space, domestic hot water, and outdoor slab heat.  Andy is currently leading the design of a 120 ton ground source trans-critical CO₂ heat pump system with heat recovery that will provide district heating to the Library, City Hall, Fire Hall and Annex for the City of Seward, Alaska.

Bryan Beitler

Mr. Beitler’s career includes 38+ years of experience in refrigeration and HVAC design, sales, energy and operations support for businesses focused on grocery retailers, cold storage, process refrigeration and other mission critical systems. His current and most recent experience is with Source Refrigeration and HVAC. Mr. Beitler started his career with Scott Polar Corp. of Twin Falls Idaho, then later transferred to sister company Kimmel Motz Refrigeration of Los Angeles, and most recently Edison Source and Source Refrigeration and HVAC, of which CoolSys is the parent company.

Mr. Beitler’s responsibilities over the years have been highly technical, managing engineering services, manufacturing of refrigeration equipment, providing direct sales support to select customers, as well as operations and Energy Optimization Services support. He holds a degree in Engineering Technology with emphasis on refrigeration and HVAC from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Ca. Mr. Beitler participates in industry organizations such as ASHRAE, RETA & FMI. He is a contractor’s license qualifier, and holds 40+ licenses in various states and regions, and recently was a co-author of an ASHRAE sponsored Commissioning Guide for Commercial and Industrial refrigeration systems. He is currently the President and CEO of the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC), a non-profit organization focused on the acceleration of natural refrigerants into the marketplace.

Klas Berglöf

Klas has a Master of Science in Applied Thermodynamics and Refrigeration from the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. Since 1984 active in the Swedish refrigeration, air-conditioning and heat pump industry. Worked 5 years as a consultant for manufacturers in development projects, fault analyses and for UNEP/UNDP/UNIDO/WB projects under the Montreal Protocol to phase out ODS. Member of the steering committee of several national research projects for alternative refrigerants and energy efficient RAC systems also member of ASHRAE committee SPC207 for Fault Detection and Diagnosis. The author holds several patents on products that have been successfully introduced commercially. Started ClimaCheck in 2004 to develop performance analysing methods for the RAC industry.

David Bornemeier

David Bornemeier is an entrepreneur, investor, and old fashioned American businessman. He is a C-Level executive and director of several companies in various industries including education, private equity, leisure services and of course warehousing and logistics. When he is not spending time with his wife and three kids (or at the nearest fly fishing spot), most of David's time and focus is spent with Western Gateway Storage Co. In business for over a century, Western Gateway is now expanding its business to a new state of the art warehouse utilizing the latest technology to keep their clients' inventory safe, clean and cold.

Jeff Buxton

Jeff Buxton is a progressive engineer developing customer engineering solutions to pave the way on PermaCold’s commitment toward green industrial refrigeration.
His work is directly establishing the company as the industry leader in highly efficient, energy-saving systems and the use of natural refrigerants. 
His engineering and project experience includes design and selection of major equipment for industrial refrigeration systems in widely varied applications, and successful projects for facilities ranging from food production plants, freeze dry, cold storage facilities and beverage manufacturers.
Mr. Buxton brings particular expertise in designing systems using an array of refrigerants (including Freons, Ammonia, and CO2), giving PermaCold value-added engineering experience for clients in designing custom-built systems to meet unique facility needs or conditions.

Ronnie R. Ceballos

In 1984 Ronnie entered the accounting world after obtaining a business degree from University of Southern California. Starting with Ernst and Young, he obtained his CPA. Ronnie spent 6 years as an accountant before joining General Cold Storage in 1990 as the company's CEO.
With 25+ years of experience we can say his insight and awareness for all phases of the cold storage industry is invaluable to KPAC. Konoike-Pacific acquired General in 2007. At KPAC General, Ronnie is responsible for operations, P&L., customer relations and sales.

Terry L. Chapp

Terry Chapp has been with Danfoss Industrial Refrigeration for the past 15 years.
He has been involved with HVAC&R for most of his career and active in Industrial Refrigeration for the past 18 years. He started his career in the field of Industrial Heat Transfer with the Trane Company in 1980. Over the past 38 years, he has been involved in engineering, sales, product management, and marketing with Thermo Electron Corporation, Sundstrand Heat Transfer, Modine Manufacturing, and Vilter Manufacturing. He holds Bachelors Degrees in Liberal Arts and Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the state of Wisconsin.

Marc Chasserot

Marc Chasserot is a specialist in natural refrigeration with over 15 years of experience in the HVAC&R sector, starting as the Marketing Manager for the Norsk Hydro business unit specialised in CO₂ transcritical refrigeration and heating. He worked closely with several Japanese manufacturers selling the market innovative "CO₂ Ecocute heatpumps".

In 2006 Marc founded the industry leading website for CO₂ cooling and heating experts worldwide, called www.R744.com. This was followed by three additional industry resources for hydrocarbons, water and ammonia (namely: www.hydrocarbons21.com, www.R718.com and www.ammonia21.com).

Marc is co-founder and CEO of shecco, an independent market development company specialised in bringing Natural Refrigerants 'faster to market', working with numerous companies worldwide. Marc has chaired and organised several international workshops bringing together leading policy and industry experts to discuss 'how to bring natural refrigerants' faster to market, known as 'ATMOsphere'. He is also an active member of ASHRAE.

Gary Cooper

Gary has been involved in grocery store refrigeration for 29 years, the last 22 have been with Lowe’s.
His responsibilities include oversight of all service both refrigeration and HVAC for 153 sites with his 27 employee dept., also design, build, install and commission of custom designed rack systems in house.

Bart Croes

Bart Croes (“cruise”) is the Chief of the Research Division for the California Air Resources Board, with responsibilities for California’s ambient air quality standard reviews; health, exposure, atmospheric processes, and emissions research; indoor air quality program; and mitigation of high global warming potential gases. 
He holds a Master of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, and is a registered Professional Chemical Engineer in the State of California.

Alvaro de Oña

Alvaro is a shareholder and co-founder of shecco as an independent entity. He was instrumental in the early success of shecco’s communication platforms (R744.com, hydrocarbons21.com, ammonia21.com) and market research services. With a background in social sciences and international relations, he has spent the last six years working at the European Commission as an Human Resources expert, overseeing several change projects and helping to set up two new Agencies of the EU from scratch. As of March 2016, Alvaro is back at shecco to help its further international development and lead the media team in its efforts to share relevant stories, news and updates on the global transition towards natural refrigerants.

Paul Delaney

Paul Delaney has been an energy and energy efficiency professional for 38 years, and is currently a Senior Engineer at Southern California Edison. He is responsible for the evaluation of new technologies that can reduce demand and energy consumption for Edison industrial, large commercial, manufacturing and agriculture customers. Paul is an experienced speaker, panelist and recognized utility expert in natural and alternative refrigerants for refrigeration applications. Mr. Delaney was a former Vice President for the American Utility Network, National Account manager for Edison Source and Senior Energy engineer for the United States Navy. Mr. Delaney holds a BS in Environmental Engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, CA, and is a member of ASHRAE, ASME and SME.

Jan Dusek

Jan holds a Doctor of Engineering degree in System Design from Hosei University in Tokyo and a Master’s degree from the Czech Technical University in Prague. During his studies, and research undertaken in the USA, Europe and Japan, Jan has centered his academic focus on environmental technologies and marketing strategies. Having lived in Japan for over 8 years, Jan communicates fluently in Japanese and has a rich experience cooperating with Japanese industry. Jan is currently based in Tokyo, responsible for business development activities and monitoring Asian markets on behalf of shecco Japan.

Todd Ernest

Todd Ernest is an entrepreneur who founded and successfully built Climate Pros into a nationwide powerhouse in the refrigeration industry.  In 12 short in 10 states with over 400 employees, Todd is continuing to grow Climate Pros organically and by acquisition.  The goal is to simply Change the industry by building a great company, for great people. Todd is passionate about his faith, his family and the great people he works with. His greatest years Climate Pros has grown from just Todd and a truck, to a nationwide brand servicing over 2000 sites and the country’s largest grocery retailers.  Now operating passion is helping people get what they want out of their career.

Ed Estberg

In 1963 Ed Estberg joined Hussmann in Sacramento working as a refrigeration mechanic. He was president of Refrigeration Design Contractors Inc from 1974 to 1989. After 15 years of experience, he became Senior Director of Facilities for Raley’s in Dec 1989 and retired from Raley’s in May 2009. Since his retirement, he has been acting as consultant on refrigeration systems.

Michael Garry

Michael Garry is a business journalist with a 30-year track record. Most recently, he ledthe coverage of sustainability, technology and logistics at Supermarket News for more than 11 years. He is well known among retailers, suppliers, technology vendors and trade groups throughout the North American food retailing and consumer goods industries. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of M.I.T. with a degree in political science, he has written his first book, “Game of My Life – New York Mets,” in which 25 baseball players recall their most memorable game.

Steve Gnas

Steve Gnas, President of Discovery Designs Refrigeration, has 25 years in the refrigeration industry.
He has design experience in both commercial and industrial systems, ranging from small semiconductor applications to large manufacturing, warehousing and prosses applications. 
He has worked with Cascade and Auto-Cascade systems for over 20 years in various applications and has experience with many natural refrigerants including R-717, R-718, R-744, R-290.

Vicente Guilabert

Vicente Guilabert is currently the Vice General Manager leading R&D and Quality at Huayi Compressor Barcelona, S.L. He has an Industrial Engineer degree from the “Universidad Politecnica de Catalunya” and a PDD from the IESE Business School. He has made an extensive professional career within the HVAC&R sector. Mr. Guilabert is currently the head of the R&D team at Huayi Compressor Group for light commercial refrigeration compressors. He has an outstanding knowledge of the hermetic compressor technologies, combined with great expertise in light commercial refrigeration market trends. He has also participated as a speaker in international conferences.

Before joining Huayi Compressor Barcelona 15 years ago, he worked for Hitachi Air Conditioning for 5 years as the Technical Customer Service Centre Manager. His responsibilities were linked to the technical assistance of customers worldwide.

Derek Hamilton

Derek holds a Masters in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland and is Professionally Registered with the UK Engineering Council. Derek has over 12 years of global experience in the design, manufacture and installation of industrial refrigeration and heat pump systems using both ammonia and carbon dioxide. He is a specialist in low charge ammonia system design and one of the pioneers of the 'low charge ammonia' concept in the US. Derek is a long time advocate of natural refrigerant technologies, and works to promote the use of natural refrigerants as the long term solution to replacing HFCs in the HVAC&R industries.

Pega Hrnjak

Professor Hrnjak is Co-Director of the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Center (ACRC) at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, an NSF founded university–industry cooperative research center. Pega is also a founder and President of R&D company CTS, which bridges ACRC activities (precompetitive research in function of education) and industry. He is an active member or fellow of ASME, ASHRAE, IIR, SAE and IIAR, and an editor or member of the boards of several professional scientific journals. He is a recipient of Gustav Lorentzen, J&E Hall and Rittinger medals among other awards.

James Knudsen

James Knudsen is the North American Segment Leader for Food Retail at Danfoss. He is an experienced refrigeration and manufacturing executive specializing in global marketing, business development and product strategy. He has had worked in Food Retail and Foodservice as well as other industrial markets and has broad international experience. Jim has a bachelor degree in Physics from Michigan State University, an MBA from Baldwin Wallace University, and is the holder of five U.S. patents.

Jean-Francois Labelle

Jean-Francois joined Congebec in 2012 where he started as National Maintenance Director. In 2018, his leadership and technical expertise led him to be appointed to the position of Vice-President Engineering. He leads and oversees all major construction and improvement projects, as well as strategic and products development in the maintenance and IT departments.
Jean-Francois has a background expertise in start-up project. With a disciplined scientific foundation, he led successful project from conception through full scale production, working with multi-disciplinary teams in complex technology scale-ups within large corporations and start-up companies. His experience includes green field plant start-ups, multiple plant retrofits and new process integration into existing operations.
Jean-Francois graduated from ÉTS University in 2012 as a Mechanical Engineer

Ricardo Lara

Raised in East Los Angeles, Senator Ricardo Lara represents the 33rd Senate District, which includes the Gateway Cities of Southeast Los Angeles County and Long Beach. The district also includes the Port of Long Beach and some of the nation’s busiest and most polluted transportation corridors.
Sen. Lara has emerged as one of the most effective environmental champions in California by consistently passing laws that improve health conditions and rein in air pollution affecting all people in the state.
He formally introduced the California Cooling Act (Senate Bill 1013) in February, which calls for providing financial incentives to businesses switching to low-GWP refrigeration systems, including those using natural refrigerants.
Senator Lara is also the author of the Super-Pollutant Reduction Act (Senate Bill 1383, 2016), which set the nation’s highest target for reducing short lived climate pollutants, or super-pollutants, including HFCs, that are thousands of times more potent than CO2 and contribute to global warming.
The Super-Pollutant Reduction Act calls for cutting emissions of HFC gases by 40% and below 2013 levels by 2030. 
Senator Lara also authored Senate Bill 1204 (2014), which created the Clean Truck and Bus program and helped lead the Legislature to approve nearly $1 billion for low-emissions vehicles in 2017 – the largest single investment in clean air in the state’s history.

Peter Lepschat

Peter A. Lepschat has been with Henningsen Cold Storage Co for more than 23 years, and currently serves as the company’s Director of Engineering. 
His primary focus is on new facility design, energy conservation, safety, and preventative maintenance. During his employment at Henningsen, Peter has designed and overseen the construction of several new facilities, and has implemented numerous energy conservation projects on existing Henningsen ammonia and HFC refrigerated facilities.
Peter serves on the National Board of directors for RETA, and has written and presented white papers and articles for both RETA and the IIAR. He holds an Oregon electricians license, is RETA CIRO and CRES certified, and has background and training in electronics, HVAC, and industrial control systems.

John Lerch

John is Axiom Exergy’s VP of Sales and Marketing and is responsible for growing the business with supermarkets, cold storage facilities and other companies in the cold chain.
John joined Axiom Exergy with over a decade of experience in the energy sector. Previously, he ran his own energy consulting practice, which helped small to medium energy companies with business plans, sales and marketing strategies, and collateral creation.
Prior to consulting, he spent 8 years with General Electric in various sales and marketing roles, including leading a global sales and marketing team for a distributed power generation product. John graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in Economics and a BS in Conservation & Resource Studies with an emphasis on energy and sustainable development.

Marc-André Lesmerises

Marc-André graduated in 2003 as a Mechanical Engineer and has since designed several industrial and commercial cooling systems. He is the President and co-founder of Carnot Refrigeration, a company established in 2008, which offers thermodynamic options to customers who are seeking cleaner and greener systems. His achievements include the Sobeys warehouse in Trois-Rivières, several supermarkets and warehouses that are mainly operating with natural refrigerants like CO2 and NH3.

Virginia Lew

Virginia Lew is the manager of the Energy Efficiency Research Office at the California Energy Commission.
She oversees a portfolio of energy efficiency research projects involving buildings, industry, agriculture and water with the objective of reducing energy use, energy cost and greenhouse gas emissions.

Kurt Liebendorfer

Kurt is Vice President of Evapco and is located at its corporate headquarters in Taneytown, MD. He is leading the development and market introduction of the new EvapCold family of products, which are complete Packaged Low Charge Ammonia Refrigeration Systems.

Kurt has been in the industrial refrigeration, process cooling and construction industry for 30 years and has also worked for Johnson Controls/Frick, Stellar and GEA/FES.

Kurt received an Executive MBA from Jacksonville University and a Bachelor of Science - Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pittsburgh.

Kurt has served on the Board of Directors of the International District Energy Association, Past President of the Jacksonville chapter of ASHRAE, Past Chair & President of the Turbine Inlet Cooling Association and is an active member of IIAR, serving on the Government Affairs committee & Compliance Guidelines committee, and the Global Cold Chain Alliance serving on the Refrigeration & Energy committee and the Construction Codes committee.

Avipsa Mahapatra

Avipsa is the Climate Campaign Lead at EIA. During her five years in working on a global phase down of HFCs, Avipsa was instrumental in EIA’s international strategy formulation, overseeing technical and policy work and bringing a deep understanding of A5 concerns and relationships to the broader team. Avipsa joined EIA with over five years of climate policy management and implementation experience. She has previously worked for the World Resources Institute in developing a framework for emerging economies to initiate emissions reporting programs, and at Development Alternatives, a leading Indian research and action NGO, managing a carbon-reduction and environmental monitoring program via a large network of  diverse civil society organizations. She was an official member of the Indian delegation to UNFCCC COP 14, has also worked with the Earth Institute New York, WWF Norway, 350.org and PowerShift. She has graduate degrees from Columbia University in Climate Science and Public Policy and from the Energy and Resources Institute in India in Natural Resources Management, and held a research fellowship at Yale University in sustainable urban transport.

Peter A. Marotta

Grocery Outlet is a 300 store extreme value retailer, primarily on the west coast, with some stores in Pennsylvania. Pete’s been with Grocery Outlet for over 14 years in his present role, and is responsible for all energy, engineering, store planning and refrigeration.  During his tenure, Grocery Outlet has evolved from 128 stores to 300 stores. Pete believes that store profits begin with proper design.  His designs save Grocery Outlet Independent Owner/Operators over $3.5 Million a year in power costs, while maintenance costs are well below the industry average. With over 32 years of professional experience, Pete has designed, and built over retail 320 stores. Pete’s grown up in the supermarket business and has been working on store planning, refrigeration and energy efficiency all his life. From building shopping centers to washing refrigerated display cases and service vans, Pete has learned the business from the bottom up. His Father and brother are also professional store planners on the east coast.

Brandon Marshall

Brandon Marshall is a refrigeration expert with over 12 years of experience in the design and implementation of high-efficiency systems utilizing a wide variety of today’s natural refrigerant offering and advanced control technology. Brandon has a Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania College of technology, an affiliate school of Penn State.

In his current role, Brandon is responsible for the management and implementation of CAREL's energy saving solutions in the food service and retail manufacturing sector. Recently, Brandon has focused on assisting manufacturers in successfully incorporating natural refrigerants into their product lines.

Scott Martin

Scott Martin currently serves as Director, Business Development and Industry Relations for Hillphoenix, a Dover Company, located in Conyers, Georgia. A third generation Refrigeration Engineer, Scott received his Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Southern Polytechnic State University in 1985.

Scott has held a wide variety of industry roles including Product Manager, Director of R&D, Engineering, and most recently Director of Sustainable Technologies. Today, Scott’s focus reflects a strong Hillphoenix commitment to providing product and technology answers that help retailers supply higher quality food products while advancing efforts toward environmental stewardship.

Kevin Messner

Kevin Messner joined the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) in 2008 and is currently Senior Vice President, Policy & Government Relations.
Kevin is responsible for imple­menting AHAM’s legislative, regulatory, political and grassroots programs. He plays a key role in advancing AHAM’s positions on public policy issues in the US and Canada.

Prior to joining AHAM, Kevin served as Associate Administrator of the Office of Congressional & Inter­governmental Affairs and the Office of Governmentwide Policy at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). In this role, he was the chief senior executive manager responsible for all aspects of GSA’s communications and coordina­tion with Congress and state/local governments, as well as the development and implementation of policies affecting the entire federal government.

Kevin earned a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and an MBA in International Finance from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.

John Miles

John Miles is General Manager of the Eco Systems division for Sanden International USA, and is responsible for sales and support of the first commercially available Residential CO2 Heat Pump Water Heater in North America.
Mr. Miles is currently based in Southern California, Sanden has additional sales locations in Detroit MI, and a sales and manufacturing facility in Wylie TX.

The SANCO2 Heat Pump Water heater is based on Eco Cute technology and features the highest efficiency and First Hour rating of any HPWH presently sold in North America. Product is sold nationally in the US and Canada, and is installed by both plumbers and HVAC contractors.
Mr. Miles is a 25 year veteran of the HVAC industry, having started his career as a Design Draughtsman for Airedale International in Leeds, England. 
Prior to joining Sanden Mr. Miles was most recently Chief Product Officer at Quietside/Samsung where he was responsible for all aspects of Product engineering, governmental and regulatory issues, factory, field technical support, training and OEM support for a variety of HVAC products.

Dominique Monney

Dominique Monney is Director of Solutions & Technology Integration at Emerson and he specializes in the development of Emerson’s low GWP industry global strategy. He possesses 15 years of contracting, manufacturing, engineering, sales, and technical service experience working directly with end users, contractors, wholesalers, OEMs, consultants and utilities.

Dominique holds a B.Eng from Switzerland and is multilingual with international experience. He is a member of the CSA B52 Technical Committee as well as the IIAR CO2 Hand Book Committee and a natural refrigeration systems expert.

Andre Patenaude

Andre is responsible for developing the North American marketing and growth development strategy pertaining to Emerson’s food retail and chiller business.
He was most recently responsible for Emerson’s global CO2development efforts. 
Andre has more than 33 years of industry experience in sales, marketing, training and business development of HVACR systems and applications.

John Prall

John Prall studied at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering. In 2012, Prall accepted his current position with Embraco, working as a Technical Support Engineer for the United States and Canada. At Embraco, Prall’s responsibilities include providing engineering technical support for commercial and aftermarket customers, including assisting customers with the selection and application of hermetic compressors. Prall also trains customers on compressor technology and market trends through customer visits, trade show presentations and webinar activities. Prall has over 14 years of experience in the commercial refrigeration industry. Prior to his role at Embraco, he held several different roles ranging from engineering to product management at Hussmann Corporation.

Corey Rosenbusch

Corey Rosenbusch serves as the President and CEO of the Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA), a global, membership-based organization that unites all the elements of the temperature-controlled supply chain to ensure the safe delivery of high-quality food and other perishables to consumers worldwide.
Rosenbusch is dedicated to building value for the more than 1,300 member companies throughout 80 countries that make up GCCA’s core partner organizations: Refrigerated Warehousing, World Food Logistics Organization, Refrigerated Transportation, Cold Storage Construction, and its foundation the World Food Logistics Organization.
Rosenbusch holds a degree in International Development from Harvard University, and Agricultural Education from Texas A&M University, where he also chairs his college’s advisory board. He also serves on boards for the Small Business Legislative Council and National FFA Foundation.  A native Texan, he currently resides in Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife and three daughters.

Dave Rule

Dave Rule is the President of IIAR, an organization committed to the advancement of natural refrigerants in refrigeration and air conditioning systems throughout the world. As President, Dave leads a broad membership of industry professionals representing design engineers, end users, contractors, manufacturers, academics and scientists that share their collective knowledge and experience to produce consensus documents and materials to support the safe use of natural refrigerants in the refrigeration industry. These programs include an ANSI approved standards writing body, advocacy programs working with the regulatory community and the building and fire code agencies, and a comprehensive education program to ensure the safe and efficient use of natural refrigerants in all applications.

Prior to joining IIAR as president, Dave served as Vice President of Refrigeration Sales and Marketing in the U.S. for one of the leading companies in the design and manufacture of energy and water saving equipment for the refrigeration industry. Prior to this position, he served as the International Vice President responsible for manufacturing and sales operations. 

Lori Schiavo

Lori Schiavo is the Executive Vice President for RSES, the HVACR Training Authority. She has been with the organization since 2007 when she started working on the Society’s flagship publication, RSES Journal. In that role for nearly 10 years, she has worked with the gamut of professionals in the HVACR industry. Prior to RSES, Schiavo has a long history in the B2B publishing which includes positions on magazines in the mining, printing and construction industries, among others.

Doug Schmidt

Douglas Schmidt is a Mechanical Engineering Graduate from Purdue University.  He has 22 years of experience in refrigeration design, testing, manufacturing, product promotion and sales leadership.
Throughout his career he has focused on blending new technology with customer satisfaction.
He’s currently working with Rivacold, a leading European manufacture or refrigeration systems, to launch a new operation in the United States.

Yoram Shabtay

With 20 years of experience, Yoram Shabtay is a Heat Exchanger Designer veteran with a Master’s degree in Heat and Mass Transfer. Shabtay is the head of consulting firm Heat Transfer Technologies LLC (HTT) and as a licensed HVAC engineer, provides designs for current and new condenser and evaporator coils. HTT is also the official Technical Advisor to the International Copper Association, providing guidance and designs for all types of HVAC and refrigeration systems. He regularly speaks at conferences about new upcoming heat-exchanger technologies and related development work. HTT also works with industry leaders providing prototype heat-exchanger service for evaluation.

Daryl Stauffer

Daryl is Product Manager for compression and vessel products at the Frick Industrial Refrigeration brand of Johnson Controls. He leads the strategy and development of Frick screw compressors and packages for Food & Beverage and Process System markets. Recent development activities include expansion of HPS – high pressure screw compressors for ammonia heat pumps, CO₂ compressor development, and Frick Low Charge Central System support.

Daryl has 20 years of global and regional product management & development, application engineering, and technical support experience in refrigeration and air conditioning markets working directly with contractors, OEMs and end users. Previously he was the mechanics engineering manager at CAREL USA. 

Daryl holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Penn State University. He participates in various industry organizations such as ASHRAE, IIAR, and RETA, and has held various handbook and leadership roles for technical committees within those groups.

Art Sutherland

Art Sutherland is the President of Accent Refrigeration Systems of Victoria BC.
He graduated from the Nova Scotia Technical College with the highest marks in the province and an honors diploma in refrigeration technology in 1976.
Art is the past refrigeration chair for ASHRAE Vancouver Island and past president of the Heating, Refrigeration, Air Conditioning Institute. He serves on the ASHRAE 10.2 committee where he has recently updated the engineering guideline for ice rinks.
Art’s mechanical designs can be found on private, public, professional and venues for the Olympic Games. Art has worked in varying capacities at six winter Olympics and most recently was the refrigeration advisor for the IOC for the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

Chengzhi Tang

Chengzhi is a Senior Refrigeration Engineer at Helmer Scientific. A Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, Chengzhi brings in 13 years of refrigeration system design experiences for various commercial, laboratory, and medical applications and has spent the last 6 years designing refrigeration systems using natural refrigerants including CO2 and hydrocarbons. Chengzhi is currently focused on developing Helmer’ new generation refrigeration platform using hydrocarbon refrigerants. Previously, Chengzhi led the R744 refrigeration system development team at Crane Merchandising Systems.
Chengzhi is an active member of ASHRAE and a peer reviewer for several international academic journals.

Rusty Walker

Rusty Walker is the trainer for the Hillphoenix Learning Center and has held that position since the Learning Center’s inception over nine years ago. In his tenure at Hillphoenix, Rusty has also managed the Research and Development lab in the Refrigeration Systems division, worked in engineering and completed field work. Prior to Hillphoenix, he also held positions with Atlanta Energy Specialist, Bohn and Heatcraft as a Service Technician. Rusty has dedicated his entire career to commercial and supermarket refrigeration, and all his experience and expertise make him a natural fit for his current position as a Senior Corporate Trainer.

James K. Walters

Jim’s career includes experience in managing international programs and projects in the defense, petroleum, and air-conditioning, heating and water heating industries. This includes the management of advocacy programs, scientific research, and cooperative work with both government officials, NGOs and related industry groups globally and in North America. 

At AHRI Jim currently is focusing on industry’s implantation of the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, the industry’s transition to new refrigerants, the special challenges in developed and developing countries, and trade issues. This includes work with UN Environment, UNIDO, the World Trade Organization and other international standards developers, especially in two areas: developing a standardization “pathway” for executing the change to new refrigerants, and ensuring policy recognition of the need for the robust training and education of technicians.

Rick Watters

Rick Watters has worked in the ammonia refrigeration industry for 35 years at AMS Mechanical Systems. He has worked as a service tech, service manager, project manager and is currently the Vice President of the Refrigeration and Food Process Piping Group since 1993.
Rick has also sat on the board of the IIAR and currently teaches Ammonia Refrigeration for the Pipe Fitters local 597

Andrew Williams

As editor and senior reporter in Brussels, Belgium, Andrew oversees publication of natural refrigerant news on shecco’s B2B websites R744.com, hydrocarbons21.com, and ammonia21.com. He is also editor of Accelerate Europe and Accelerate Australia & NZ magazines, shecco’s quarterly magazines showcasing how leading organisations are turning to climate-friendly natural refrigerants like carbon dioxide, ammonia and hydrocarbons to improve and future-proof refrigeration, heating and air conditioning systems in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and beyond.

He joined shecco in December 2015 from COGEN Europe, the European Association for the Promotion of Cogeneration, where as communications manager he helped to represent the interests of the combined heat and power sector towards the EU institutions. He particularly focused on the heating and cooling sector and its contribution to delivering climate and energy policy objectives. 

Andrew's previous roles include communications manager at the European Policy Centre, an EU affairs think-tank, and sub-editor and journalist at EU affairs news website EurActiv.com. He studied French, German and European Union Studies at the University of Edinburgh.

Jacob Wolfe

Jacob Wolfe is the Vice President of Sales for Guntner U.S. LLC. 
Jacob manages sales for the HVAC, Commercial Refrigeration and Energy markets for the US and Canadian markets. 
Mr. Wolfe holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Finance from Pennsylvania State University and a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. He is active in ASHRAE and a LEED Accredited Professional. Jacob and his team are focused on promoting natural refrigerants, energy and water savings along with new green methods of cooling and heat rejection for all markets within his team’s responsibility.

Marek Zgliczynski

Marek Zgliczynski studied at the Turin Politechnic in Italy where he earned his degree in mechanical engineering. In 1979, after completing his degree, Marek began his career as a researcher and project leader of new product development at Aspera Spa. 

A few years later, Marek transitioned to Embraco, becoming the Manager of Compressor Design. His successful efforts led to many promotions, including European Commercial Product and Technology Manager, Commercial Refrigeration Product Corporate Director and Corporate Fellow Researcher for the Commercial Refrigeration Segment. 

His main responsibility includes the development of household and light commercial refrigeration products. He also provides technical assistance to the sales team in order to promote Embraco products that align with customer feedback. 

Throughout his career, Marek has earned three U.S. patents and Gold Whirlpool Quality Team Award and he has published several pieces of literature for international conferences and events about refrigeration technology. In 2016, he was elected to a Chair of the IEC/SC61C Committee, in charge of the development of international product safety standards for refrigeration segment. He is also member in several other standardization bodies like ISO TC86/SC1/WG1, CEN TC182WG6 and WG12, IEC SC61DWG16 and UL STP471, Ashrae Member.