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I remember in the early 1980's when Solar Age or one of the very few solar periodicals would arrive in the mail, it quickly became a treasured connection to the rest of a fledgling industry. In a time when we were hungry for knowledge and everything in our industry was new, these tidbits of news were required reading for everyone.

<span style="font-size: 16px;">Over the years, I've tried to continue this connection by keeping you informed of what's new at Aquatherm and in our industry with our AI Network newsletter every quarter. Due to the speed of business today, I occasionally fall behind and the timeliness of some of the articles lag.</span>

So instead of trying to accumulate several articles at a time (a harken back to the days of a printed version of the AI Network), I'm going to try and to write one at least one article every few weeks.

This first one is being written on my way back from the ISES World Congress, held every two years and the first Congress hosted by Latin America. Attendees from 66 countries met for four days to discuss the latest developments in solar technologies by attending over 250 workshops, plenary talks and individual presentations.  There were thought provoking discussions which included pool heating, the use of polymers in domestic water heating collectors, methods of flow balancing and pumping / control strategies and much, much more. Yea, I was like a kid in a candy store.

I was also able to meet with an Ecosun dealer in the area and he briefed me on a recently completed 600 collector installation at a resort located between Cancun and Playa del Carmen. For me though, the biggest take-away from the Congress were the sessions regarding climate change and sustainability. The vast majority of counties in the Americas have accepted that our current climate change issues are man-made and have committed to implementing long-term solutions including measurable goals to address the issues. Sadly, the most notable country of all that continues to ignore the facts that the rest of the world is accepting, is the United States.

This is just another reason why the diversity of Aquatherm's international business is so important us, not to mention the connections and exchange of ideas that come along with it.

Along these lines, I'm happy to announce that at least three of our international customers will again be joining us at this year's Distribution and National Master Dealer Meeting in Orlando this January; Daniel Garcia from Modulo Solar in Mexico, Ricardo Sarti from Solarpool in Argentina and Wells Gilbert from Ecosun Australia. Theirs, and your attendance are what continues the long legacy of connection between yourselves and Aquatherm.

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I also want to take a moment and thank all of you for ongoing patience as we continue to reinvest in Aquatherm and upgrade our computer and phone systems. Today, we'll begin the process of converting over to an in-house exchange server for our email system. This may mean that your emails to us during the time of conversion may get hung up or you could potentially receive an undeliverable message. There's never a good time to do this, but doing it now is certainly better than waiting till the spring. The crackly phone calls should come to an end very shortly as well. When we installed the new phone system, we decided to split internet access and phone service between a fiber optic line for internet and a T-1 for the phone. The advantage was in case one went down, either system would automatically switch over to the other temporarily. The only flaw in the plan was waiting for Verizon to show up with the new T-1. Some behemoths you can move, and some you cannot.

<span style="font-size: 12px;">-Dave</span>

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