Taco's Barba newest recipient of Carlson-Holohan Award

This year’s presentation to John Barba was held at Taco’s booth during the 2012 AHR show.

Pictured are (left to right) PM columnist and hydronics author Dan Holohan, award chairman and industry expert Robert Bean, and Taco hydronics trainer John Barba.

At the 2012 AHR Show in Chicago Jan. 23, hydronics training expert and mentor John Barba received the 2012-2014 Carlson-Holohan Industry Award of Excellence. The every-other-year award is presented to persons who represent the best of the hydronic heating industry based on criteria that includes contributions to system design integrity, marketing of steam and hot water systems and humanitarian works.

This year’s presentation to Barba was held at Taco’s booth during the AHR show. Pictured are (left to right) PM columnist and hydronics author Dan Holohan, award chairman and industry expert Robert Bean, and Barba. Also present were past recipients Mark Eatherton and Dave Yates.

The honor was named after the late Gil Carlson (1922-1994), a legendary hydronics industry instructor who served as director of technical services for Bell & Gossett and taught an estimated 175,000 students. The award itself is the original System Syzer wheel developed by Carlson. The wheel is now mass-produced by Bell & Gossett and is one of the industry’s most useful design tools.

Each award recipient agrees to serve as guardian of the traveling artifact and preserve it for future recipients. The recipient also serves on a nominating committee to select the next winner.

Since its inception, the Carlson-Holohan Award has been sponsored by PM, pme and Supply House Times magazines. Further information about the history of the award can be found at the healthyheating.com site.

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Kelly Faloon was a former editor of Plumbing & Mechanical as well as the BNP Media Plumbing Group’s Integrated Content Development Specialist. She also was a former editor of the Radiant Comfort Guide the Radiant & Hydronics Report — both official publications of the Radiant Professionals Alliance — and twice-monthly Radiant & Hydronics eNews, an enewsletter for anyone interested in the world of heating with hot water.

Her editorial specialties included women in plumbing, recruiting for the trades, green construction techniques, water conservation, water treatment, hydronic heating, radiant heating and cooling, snow melt, solar thermal and geothermal.

After a 3½-year stint at sister publication Supply House Times, Faloon joined the PM staff in December 2001 as senior editor. She was named PM’s managing editor in 2006 and editor in 2013.

Previously, she spent nearly 10 years at CCH, a publishing firm specializing in business and tax law, where she wore many hats — proofreader, writer/editor for a daily tax publication, and Internal Revenue Code editor.

A native of Michigan’s northern Lower Peninsula, Faloon is a 1986 journalism graduate of Michigan State University.