ARBS 2018 Industry Awards — winners announced

ARBS 2018, Australia’s only international air conditioning, refrigeration and building services trade exhibition, has announced the ARBS Industry Awards winners for 2018.

The nominations were evaluated by a panel of industry experts on various criteria such as leadership, sustainability, performance and innovation to select the finalists. The winners were honoured at a gala dinner held on Wednesday, 9 May 2018 at the International Convention Centre (ICC) in Sydney.

The first award of the night, the ARBS Outstanding Industry Education/Training Award, was presented to Danfoss Australia for its Mobile CO2 Training Unit. This training unit provides easy-to-access, hands-on training for the thousands of installers, service technicians and OEM engineers worldwide that want to take full advantage of the natural refrigerant.

The ARBS Outstanding Service and Maintenance Award was awarded to A.G. Coombs Group.

A new category for 2018, the ARBS Software/Digital Excellence Award was claimed by HydroChem for Clarity, an online application that presents real-time field data in visualisations. Users can quickly view and understand vast amounts of asset water health information at a glance with its innovative distillation of big data, which may well be a world first in the battle to control Legionella outbreaks. HydroChem gratefully accepted the prestigious award musing over the small but important niche it fills in the HVAC+R industry.

Next, the ARBS Product Excellence Award was presented to Air Change for ACDHUM-LD, the first Australian-made dehumidification unit with air-to-air counterflow plate heat exchange technology for temperature and humidity control. Air Change acknowledged its passionate team in making this a product a reality.

The ARBS Project Excellence Award was given to F Mayer Refrigerated cold storage/distribution centre, Strathbrook Industrial Services and Danfoss Australia. On accepting the award Ian Wilson of Strathbrook Industrial Services said, “CO₂ has so much more potential than is currently being used in Australia”, urging those in the industry to “check it out as there is a massive future for it”. 

The ARBS Young Achiever Award 2018 was awarded to Jason Harrison from Airmaster Australia. Jason said it was a great industry to work in and cited mentoring as a direct influence for his achievements.

Rounding out the evening was prestigious lifelong contributors awards presented to five HVAC+R and building services professionals, who were inducted into the ARBS Hall of Fame 2018. The winners are: John Bosci (nominated by AIRAH); Warren Cole (nominated by RACCA); Stephen Gilchrist (nominated by CIBSE ANZ); Mark Padwick (nominated by AREMA); and David Seedsman (nominated by AMCA).

The ARBS Industry Awards are held every two years in association with the ARBS Exhibition.