In separate, simultaneous meetings in early October 2002, members of ARWI and NHRAW voted in favor of consolidation, effective January 3 of this year. The new association is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, and it recently held its first-ever winter meeting this month in San Francisco.
The vote approving the consolidation was the result of a year-long effort to draw on the strengths of both organizations and mold them into a new association that looks to be, as one representative put it, "the single voice of the wholesale-distribution for the HVACR industry."