The HARDI Association has built a strong program for emerging leaders, and at the HARDI Emerging Leaders Conference July 22 -24th over 100 HVACR Emerging Leaders had a packed agenda with great speakers and presentations over the full program.
I was intrigued by the event, as I saw it had great speakers and presenters including Dr. Bharani Nagarathnam. Dr. Bharani is the Associate Professor of Instruction and Director of Master of Industrial Distribution program at the Department of Engineering Technology & Industrial Distribution at Texas A&M University. I have been fortunate to learn so much from the Texas A&M Program over the years, and in my opinion any program Dr. Bharani and Texas A&M involved in is a strong program.
Although I was not able to attend the event I wanted to get some reactions from attendees, as emerging leader programs are very important to help develop that next generation of HVACR Channel leaders.
So, I reached out to Ryan Kalmbach from the Johnstone Supply – Orion Group for his perspective on the Emerging Leaders Conference. Ryan graciously shared his feedback below,
“I attended the HARDI Emerging Leader Conference as a “mentor”. I would highly recommend it and plan to send people from our company in the future. Some of the highlights for me were:
- Incredible networking. 100+ emerging leaders from our industry, both distributors and supplier partners. Everyone was very open and willing to share experiences. Plus, an opportunity to network with the mentors and the HARDI Board of Directors.
- Financial case study using HARDI’s Cometrics benchmarking report and lead by Brian Loftus. Financial education is a focus for our team, this session was highly impactful.
- Charting your Career Path with Confidence by HARDI’s Stella Keane was a great activity to help participants take charge of their future path and growth.
I believe HARDI’s Emerging Leaders program will have a tremendous impact on the future success of the attendees.”
The HARDI Channel needs to develop the next generation of leaders
This week, I was on a call with a very large national construction focused distributor where we were reviewing the research work we do for them. They shared that over the years their management training and internship programs had first dwindled, and then disappeared after COVID.
They knew it was an issue, as in the next sentence they said “we have no bench”. We both just nodded our heads and lamented that a once important program had just slowly melted away. The fact that HARDI has a program to help develop a bench that every distributor needs and help future leaders build relationships that are invaluable for their future is well….it’s great and one of the big values an association brings.
As always, we appreciate your comments and support. So, feel free to reach out at any time.
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