COLUMBUS, Ohio - The Heating, Airconditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) announced Alan Beaulieu, principal and executive vice president of the Institute for Trend Research® (ITR), has been designated as the association’s chief economist.

Over the past year, Beaulieu and his team have been producing the monthly “HARDI HVACR Sales Trends Report.” ITR has been providing economic trending information, speaking engagements at HARDI national and regional meetings, and relevant economic articles in HARDI publications. Beaulieu will continue to correlate regional and national HARDI sales trends data into the quarterly HARDI T.R.E.N.D.S. Report, as well as producing the executive summary and regional reports for each of HARDI’s seven U.S. regions.

Building on this successful business relationship with ITR, the association’s leadership has decided to utilize the many additional services ITR can offer HARDI members. New this month HARDI will host a series of Interactive Regional Forecasting (IRF) programs, an audio only mini-seminar for each of the HARDI U.S. regions. In each of these sessions Beaulieu will give a live, in-depth explanation about the information in the regional reports and respond to questions from participants. The first offering of this new activity occurred late in July and will be open to all HARDI members. Subsequent quarterly programs will be available only to those companies who submit their information as a participant in the data collection survey managed by ITR.

Another new benefit of particular interest to members is the option that ITR, through Beaulieu, will provide nondata exchange consulting where members are welcome to call Beaulieu or ITR staff with economic questions. In this capacity, Beaulieu will serve as HARDI chief economist and be available to assist members in their decision-making process.

“HARDI is extremely pleased to be able to offer its members this new look on the horizon of what will be impacting their businesses,” said the association. “Members who have heard Alan Beaulieu or read his reports have agreed that he has been on the money in his forecasting and that his reports have brought value to business decisions. With his designation as HARDI chief economist, this benefit to members will expand even further.”

For more information, visit www.hardinet.org.

Publication date: 08/03/2009