COLUMBUS, Ohio — Heating, Air-conditioning and Refrigeration Distributors International (HARDI) recently named Connor Lokar as its new senior economist through its partnership with ITR Economics.

Lokar began regularly contributing to HARDI’s economic forecasting and trend analysis projects since beginning with ITR Economics in 2013 and has already been involved with one-on-one consulting with HARDI members.

“After working on HARDI’s reports and forecasts behind the scenes for a while, I’m excited to fully immerse myself in HARDI data and join Alan Beaulieu in uncovering valuable industry insights,” said Lokar. “I look forward to meeting HARDI members at the Operations & Logistics conference this September and at the Annual Conference in December.”

Lokar specializes in applied economic analysis and forecasting for business planning at regional, national, and global levels. By evaluating both the high-level macroeconomic environment as well as industry specific markets, he helps distributors develop short-term and long-term strategies to best position their businesses to drive profitable decisions and mitigate risk.

Lokar holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Michigan.