The Refrigeration & Air Conditioning Engineers Society (RACES) is the new voice for professionals working in the refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump sector – created for the people who do the work: installers, service engineers, design & sales engineers, educators, students, and more.

A not-for-profit organisation, RACES was created by Michael Smart and Graeme Fox after many months of planning, and in collaboration with an advisory board drawn from a cross section of the industry covering some of the leading lights of the RACHP sector.

Michael Smart A new refrigeration and air conditioning society has been launched
Michael explained: “I was frustrated by the lack of representation that ordinary refrigeration engineers had in the industry from the existing bodies. Ordinary engineers felt they needed a different approach to representation and I reached out to Graeme to help me turn this dream into a reality.”

The main driving role for the new society will be to support small businesses in their refresher and upskilling training courses needed over the next few years to prepare for the wider transition to alternative refrigerants.

Graeme Fox 3 A new refrigeration and air conditioning society has been launched
Graeme explained: “The industry these days has a huge majority of small and micro businesses operating as contractors – over 90% of contractors have less than five engineers per company – that’s a massive change in the demographic from where we were 30 years ago when I learned my trade. The requirement to send your engineers away for even one or two day courses presents a comparatively huge financial and operational strain on small businesses as against the traditional larger contractors, and we have set out to provide access to free or reduced cost access to the kind of training courses these engineers will be needing in the coming years.”

RACES brought together an advisory board representing wholesale outlets (both national and privately owned), large refrigeration consultancies and respected contractors to ensure it was set up to best address the concerns that Michael first identified.

Howard Noble, Innovation & Marketing Director at founding sponsor BeijerRef said: “The Beijer Ref Academy is pleased to support the development of RACES. The founding principles of the society are aligned with our own passion to support engineers through training. This new society has identified the industry’s need to improve support services available to engineers and we believe RACES will help fulfil this.”

RACES has already secured sponsorship from some of the industry’s biggest names and are now organising training courses for their members to take advantage of. The plan is to hold training courses across the UK giving better geographical spread to their availability, and to support any regional groups or branches that currently exist in the sector as well as support any regional groups wanting to start up.

“We’re creating a real community for the sector here,” Michael added, “and we welcome all in our industry to join us and help us deliver what our sector has long needed.”

Joining fees for membership start at £65 and with an up-to-date technical library already in place, and developing every week, RACES is expected to quickly become the main representative body for engineers in the RACHP industry. www.races.org.uk