The turn for the professional of the month is Brazil, who is represented by a renowned foreign character who has given more than 47 years of his life to the industry of that South American nation.
by Duván Chaverra Agudelo
Having lived 47 years surrounded by everything that converges to the HVAC/R industry gives Celso S. Alexandre enough endorsement to speak properly about the present and future of the industry.
Celso is the president of the company TROX Technik Latin America, a Portuguese born in Angola (when this country was a colony of Portugal) and who this time represents Brazil in our usual section of the Professional of the month, because in this country he has lived much of his life dedicated in many ways to bring his knowledge and experience to the industry.
In his personal life, the engineer already claims to have fulfilled his duties and goals as a father. "My children are older and have higher education, so I can say that I am fulfilled."
Professionally, Celso assures that after his long career there are not many ambitions that remain to be achieved. Now your main purpose is to position your company among the most competitive in the Latin American market.
"My challenge will be to try to achieve in this position what I achieved in Brazil in my 30 years as CEO of Trox do Brasil, where we managed to put the company as the one with the largest participation in the markets in which we operate (air diffusion, filtration, acoustics and UTA ́S for special applications). The goal now is to try to bring the name and technology of our company to the countries of northern South and Central America that did not have a team dedicated to all that huge area. That's why we created TROX Latin America," said the guest.
He added that one of the reasons why his company remains active in the industry has to do with the ability to always be competitive: "We are technology generators, the Trox group invests only in Germany more than 2 million euros per year in research and development, not counting what is invested in all the countries where we have production such as Argentina, Brazil, China, Spain, United States, England, Malaysia, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland. In TROX Latin America, the customer will be able to count on the technology generated in all these countries".
Life continues to propose challenges to this Professional of the Month, who is clear that leadership is an important factor when it comes to meeting the goals in a company: "My relationship with my employees has always been based on respect, first as people and then as professionals. The times when I needed to be a little tougher on them, the harsh words were always for actions and never for people. The salary we pay is from your job and not your personality. It has to be preserved and respected."
Another challenge for him and his company has to do with the constant technological development, which requires remaining current in terms of what the industry proposes: "Technological innovation is a permanent concern. Today everything changes at a speed that necessarily makes a professional try to always be updated, but it is not only to bring that knowledge to the organization. This includes the critical vision to know if what is presented today as a technological novelty, resists the passage of time and is not proven in a couple of years that it was something wrong. "
Brazil in constant evolution
The Professional of the Month considers that Brazil has undergone representative changes in the last 30 years, in which it stopped using only Self Contained units to work with other systems such as "ice water, thermo accumulation, freezing, air distribution per floor, high induction diffusers, air water systems (ceilings and cold beams) among others. The appearance of VRF systems is not considered as an evolution because aspects such as comfort and indoor air quality are not taken into account in the projects that are being installed in our country, although it is possible to adapt them to that, "said Celso.
Brazil has high expectations regarding the commercial development of the HVAC/R industry, largely due to upcoming events such as the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, which demand the acquisition of this equipment for the air conditioning of the facilities; however, the increases have not yet been felt, according to the president of Trox Technik Latin America. "The accumulated so far in growth is 15% and we believe that for now it will remain in this," Celso explained.
In the other regions, the engineer predicts a good commercial future, but assures that the present is not the one that is budgeted: "In the rest of the continent we are achieving a significant increase, as in Argentina where we have a plant and in Mexico where there is a sales office. In Colombia and Chile we have resident engineers, but as it is a new effort, we do not yet have historical data; in addition, as we started in some countries from scratch, the percentage growth although it is remarkable does not have greater meaning".
The sustainable future
Celso S. Alexandre assures that today this industry continues to be linked with concepts related to sustainability and efficient projects. Currently there are available equipment that offers better performance in terms of energy consumption.
However, the engineer believes that users should make greater efforts to improve their projects related to energy efficiency. "Today the key words are sustainability and green buildings but I think that in my country there is still a need to consider more the concept of product life cycle and take into account not only the initial investment, but also the energy consumption and maintenance cost."
The future of the HVAC industry is more than promising for Celso, as this class of systems will always be necessary for some of the sectors such as residential, commercial or industrial, which leads manufacturers and merchants of these technologies to work on the development of competitive equipment with the best performance and performance.
"Our industry, not only air conditioning but also refrigeration, will always and increasingly be necessary, then the demand will always be tilted upwards and I estimate that in our continent, which is still in the process of development, soon the demand will grow to levels higher than Europe and the United States," said the Professional of the month.To highlight
Anecdotes of the Professional
Celso S. Alexandre, president of Trox Technik Latin America, and who is the professional of the month of this edition, representing Brazil, also shares with all our readers two small anecdotes of his professional life.
In the last year, at a conference on sustainability, one of the presenters talking about VRF ended his talk by saying "A piece of advice. If you want to increase the capacity of your equipment, don't put the air filters on." The worst thing is that the attendees did not laugh.
Once, in an African country where I worked, I had to receive a sterilizer from a provider in a hospital. I asked for a trial to be done with a bacterial culture and it resulted in the equipment not being approved. After this, the comment the provider made to me was, "You are to blame. He used very resistant bacteria in the trial."To highlight
Professional of the Month Profile
Celso S. Alexandre is a Portuguese born in Angola when this nation was a Portuguese colony. He has a degree in electrotechnical engineering from the University of Lisbon, a postgraduate degree in management and an international MBA. In 1969 he started working in Angola in an air conditioning distribution company. Later, in 1973 he created his consulting company with which he began to establish relations with countries such as the USA, France, South Africa and Switzerland, however, in 1974 there was the military revolution in Portugal, which made him migrate to Brazil in 1975 where he continued working in the industry until 1978.
From 1978 to 1981 he was out of the industry, having begun studies in business administration, working at that time as an air conditioning consultant in an engineering company in São Paulo in 1981 he arrived at Trox Brazil as commercial technical director. In 1987 he became the general director of this company in the South American country, where he has continued his career to the present; he is now the president of Trox Latin America.
He was also president of Abrava, of which he continues as International President and of the Federation of Ibero-American Associations of Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (Faiar), he was also founder of the Ashrae Brazil Chapter.
He wrote the book "Diffusion of Air", which contains much of the valuable knowledge he has accumulated.
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