Randy Rawson, President of the American Boiler Manufacturers Association (ABMA), the national nonprofit trade association of commercial, institutional, industrial, heat recovery, and electricity-generating boiler and combustion equipment manufacturers headquartered in Virginia, USA, recently predicted a good year for its members.

 

“Any economic slowdown in 2008 will not appreciably affect this industry,” he stated in his Annual Report to his members during ABMA’s Annual Meeting, which took place in January at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells, California. Rawson went on to say that the boiler market would continue to benefit from customers’ burgeoning need for new boiler systems to assure reliability, greater efficiency, on-going productivity, and low emissions in the boiler room. He reported that ABMA members in almost every boiler and burner sector were seeing sales and inquiry volumes not seen in years.

 

One downside that continues to contribute to longer-than-liked equipment design and fabrication lead times is the chronic professional and skilled labor crisis. Still, Rawson outlined to his members several key drivers - from volatile and expensive fuel prices to an evolving alternative fuels industry that requires boiler generated steam and hot water - contributing to business and industry’s renewed interest in the power house, reveals the association’s press release. “Slow growth is still growth. Add to that an economic stimulus package this year that provides appropriate incentives for capital spending and you have a healthy boiler industry in 2008,” Rawson concluded.