2024 Mar-Apr RETA Breeze

2023-24 BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAIRMAN Bengie Branham, CIRO, RAI SCS Engineers PRESIDENT Michael Hawkins, CARO Midatlantic Refrigeration, LLC EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT David Gulcynski, CIRO Dot Foods Inc. TREASURER Bill Lape, CARO, CIRO, CRST SCS Engineers SECOND VICE PRESIDENT Raymond Urban, CARO Lineage Logistics DIRECTORS Melissa Cassell General Refrigeration Company Dale Clinton, CIRO Stellar Victor Dearman, Jr., CIRO, CRST Peco Foods, Inc Arlie Farley, CARO, CIRO, CRST Farley’s SRP Inc Ron Fetterley, CARO, CIRO, CRST Applied Process Cooling Corp Brandon Jones, CARO Tyson Foods, Inc Barbara Kirkpatrick Mi-Docs Jim Kovarik Gamma Graphics Services Mike Missall, CARO Summit Refrigeration Group Jeremy Murfin AC & R Specialists Andrew Palomar, CARO Stellar Gordon Rascoe, Jr, CIRO, CRST, RAI ConAgra Brands COMMITTEE CHAIRS Certification: Lee Pyle, CARO SCS Tracer Environmental Education: Eric Girven, CIRO, CRST, RAI SCS Tracer Environmental Marketing: Jodie Rukamp SCS Tracer Environmental Membership: Jason Daniell, CIRO APSM National Conference: Jim Kovarik Gamma Graphics Services Publications: Vern Sanderson,

FROM THE DESK OF THE PRESIDENT

Greetings everyone, I hope that you all had a wonderful and blessed Easter! Spring is finally upon us, and it is so refreshing to see the trees beginning to bud, flowers sprouting up, and things turning green again; not to mention the more pleasant tempera tures. Just as Mother Nature is a flurry of activity, so is RETA. Your Board of Directors is working diligently behind the scenes continuing the necessary tasks to continue moving forward with our merger with RSES. Our committees are busy with book reviews and updates, marketing ideas, planning for Confer ence, and a variety of other activities. I cannot begin to thank all the committee members for their countless hours of arduous work to make our organization the Gold Standard that it is! Also, a huge thank you to all the Chapter leaders out there planning and executing exciting and informative monthly meetings and safety days, tasks that I know are no easy feat to accomplish. If you are not already involved in your local chapter or a committee, I strongly urge you to get involved. Yes, it is more “work” outside of your normal workday but the camaraderie, new friends, and learning experiences are rewards that make it all worthwhile. And who knows, you could have an impact on someone that is new to our industry. To those of you who are actively involved, I encourage you to invite someone to your next chapter meeting or safety day. Introduce them to RETA and show them what we’re all about. I recently attended the IIAR

Mike Hawkins CARO, RETA National President

Conference in Orlando and had a brief opportunity to enjoy the warm Florida sunshine. As I sat outside eating lunch enjoying the Florida weather and admiring the beautiful flowers that were blooming, it made me realize how RETA is really starting to “bloom” internation ally! For the first time we offered a review course at IIAR, and we had 7 people take and pass the CRST exam at IIAR! Congratulations to all of you who tested and passed! There was great traffic at the RETA booth, and all of us had terrific discus sions about RETA and what we have to offer. There were many many questions about our variety of educational material as well as how to obtain one of our certifications. While at the booth, I was fortunate enough to meet some young and energetic folks from Puerto Rico and Honduras who were eager for RETA training and certification. They were timely conversations as there is currently an updated Spanish translation of Book 1 that provided us an opportu nity for new volunteers to review the book for correct dialect translations. The engineer we met from Honduras is going to help with book peer review and is interested in education and potential certifications there. The contractor from Puerto Rico is working on an apprentice

CIRO, CRST, RAI Schwan’s Company Executive Director: Jim Barron 4 RETA.com