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Gary Hayden is a man of many talents. A licensed Professional Engineer in Virginia and eight other states, the 63-year-old’s career has taken him from product development to design and finally, the implementation of radiant and hydronic systems.

As I write this month’s column, I’m attending Plumbing Manufacturer’s International annual Manufacturing Success conference in Louisville, Kentucky. PMI has done a great job with its programming content this year, especially with keynote presenter Andrew Winston, a corporate environmental strategist and author, who discussed how today’s companies are now expected to take a stand against the world’s social and environmental problems — and in doing so, earn a profit.

His Taco career path led to his most recent position as senior vice president, North American OEM Sales. He was loved by Taco employees and his customers as much as he loved them.

The radiant heating market is one that took the industry by storm in the early 2000s. More than two decades later, the acceptance and applications of radiant systems have grown exponentially. Experts describe the radiant heating market in 2022 as “consistent” and “expanding,” citing labor, material and logistic uniformity shortages as the top challenges hindering radiant projects.

 While most plumbers may like to think that they’re mostly serving routine maintenance or installation customers, the most common nature of those calls is likely panicked customers with a burst pipe, a backed-up toilet or another emergency that needs a response ASAP.

As anyone in the profession knows, the plumbing industry is rapidly changing. Demand for plumbing services is reaching unprecedented levels, but so too is competition.

There is a battle going on in the industry when it comes to domestic water distribution systems, and it lies in how plumbing engineers size domestic water piping. System longevity, pressure drop, water age, noise and building codes will influence the approach taken in sizing a domestic water system.

Water treatment education and certification for water treatment professionals is a critical part of the mission of the Water Quality Association. The association represents the residential, commercial and industrial water treatment and conditioning industry.

In this weekly feature, Plumbing Group Chief Editors Nicole Krawcke and Natalie Forster highlight the industry’s latest news stories.

During the late, great Les Nelson’s last AHR conference in Chicago back in 2018, he asked me what our hydronics industry needed the most. He was on a mission to increase the visibility of the Radiant Professionals Alliance and give the industry something that it could really use.