John Levey of Oilheat Associates received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the OESP 2012 convention, held May 20-24, 2012 in Providence, R.I. Levey has over 30 years of varied experience in the industry. Photo courtesy Richard Alden.
could attend the meetings and also open the door to other trades. After all, what company today has not
diversified into other areas of business, such as A/C, refrigeration, plumbing, natural and LP gas as well as other energy resources? So with everything taken into consideration, the name Oil & Energy Service Professionals was approved and adopted at one of the national board of directors annual meetings. On Tuesday, there seemed to be a good
attendance with everyone from students to tradesmen talking with the manufactur- ers, company reps, and seeing what's new while also attending trade-related classes. The classes offered included the Silver Certification, Oil Furnace and Hydronics, Understanding and Designing a Profitable Service Department, How to Make Money by Saving Your Customer Energy, ECM Diagnostics and Moving from a Residential to Commercial Tech, to name a few. The Student/Technician Burner
Competition was fun to watch as partici- pants were able to test their troubleshooting skills in front of the burner manufacturing judges. I know they were all surprised to see how each participant took their time to diagnosis the problems. Congratulations to all the winners! On Wednesday, I was surprised to see
how few technicians and owners attended. It certainly was not for the lack of effort put forth by the OESP Convention Committee or those companies that purchased the 134 booths and provided the man-power. They came from all over the U.S. to make this event a success not only for OESP, but to dis- play their latest products that could possibly bring added profit dollars to a company's bottom line. I myself over the years have attended many of the conventions in both New England and Hershey, Pa, and they were always well-attended, but this year I wondered why the Providence event had fewer in attendance. Could it have been that many techs have become a casualty from the winter that never came? I know that Rhode Island also has the second highest unemployment rating in the U.S. and many companies within the state are struggling to survive. Just a thought!
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The Awards Banquet as always was
a success and watching the emotions and facial expression of all the recipients was great to witness. There were six students
who received the Dave Nelson Scholarship Awards presented by co- sponsors: Alrick Crowe—Honeywell, Zachary Baylor—Weil McLain, Thomas Dias- Delavan, Roger
