If you love your employer, or maybe if you just want to get brownie points, nominate your company in the 2011 Best Contractor to Work For contest. 

Contractors point at high school guidance counselors, ill-informed parents, and the lack of positive industry PR as obstacles they face in hiring top-notch talent. Instead of complaining about things you really have no control over, contractors need to roll up their sleeves and overcome those obstacles.

As any good HVAC contractor knows, it is a lot easier to blow a reputation than it is to build one up. Charlie Sheen is a good reminder that you better be doing a stellar job from the start and just improve from there.

Perhaps we have beaten our readers over the head with this over the last eight months, but we are celebrating our 85th year in publication in 2011 and are quite proud.

Sounds like Old Man Murphy is swimming in negativity again. Did you write that editorial before or after screaming at the neighborhood kids to get off your lawn? Because you were born close to biblical times, you will perhaps be familiar with the phrase “Rome was not built in a day.”

A group of nearly 550 individuals packed the South Point Hotel in Las Vegas for the 2011 HVAC Excellence National HVACR Educators and Trainers Conference (NHETC). The NHETC is an annual event dedicated to providing continuing education for HVACR educators and trainers.

Unlike many of our loyal readers, I am a lot less like Bob Vila and a lot more like SpongeBob Squarepants. So when my wife and I decided to get our basement finished, it was not a question of if we would contract out the work but to whom. I think I might be able to paint it, but that is about it.

Some rants and raves about the HVAC industry out of the mouth of an editor this Monday morning - RANT: The current high gas prices. RAVE: The repeal of the 1099 reporting requirement.

To paraphrase George Costanza: We are back, baby! That was the most important observation I made while recently attending the Air-Conditioning, Heating, Refrigerating Exposition (AHR Expo) in Las Vegas. The NEWS will cover every aspect of the show, including all new products introduced, in the Feb. 21 post-show issue.

The 2011 AHR Expo in Las Vegas was a great success for the HVAC industry. There were many exhibitors, even more attendees, and a general positive attitude about where the industry is heading.