About

What’s Your Static – What has been a great pun for the HVAC industry is also near and dear to the foundational core of the show. What’s Your Static, is meant as a code phrase for checking in on friends and listeners mental wellbeing. The Trade industries are physical and mental grinds and I have been discussing the importance of nurturing your mental health from the beginning. HVAC R&D isn’t just business, it is personal.

Evolve or Dissolve – The landscape of the Trades is changing every minute of every day. If you are not consistently and constantly learning something new every day to stay in-tune with the evolving trends in HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical, you will be left behind.

#TradeCrew – Trade Crew over brand, Always. Take care of your fellow tradesmen and tradeswomen, because in the end no one else is going to. HVAC R&D aims to cultivate a positive environment of friendly competition and lifelong relationships because you never know what tomorrow brings and collaboration is king.

Build Local, Project Global – Rhydon takes great pride in being from and working in the Carolinas. The main goal is to always build a local #TradeCrew community from which we can all grow. HVAC R&D is a platform from which we hope to inspire industry change on a national and global level through our voice, our actions to show our love and support for all trades. What WE give to the community now, will bear fruit for our futures.

The show was originally started when Rhydon and Dennis first met on the other side of the country at a 2017 HVAC Conference for a major brand in Las Vegas, Nevada. They didn’t know it then, but their future paths in the industry were soon to be connected by a roll of the dice.

The two became co-workers in 2018 when Dennis joined the same company and from the moment they shared next door offices and had their first ride-along day together, they knew they were going to be inseparable.

After years of trying to get their employer to see the value of using social media to fuel a community based movement for the trades to grow their customer base, the 2020 pandemic saw the two of them take their ideas into their own hands with creation of their collaborative efforts resulting in the HVAC R&D Podcast in the later half of that year.

Create a Podcast they said, it’ll be fun they said…and you know what, they were right. It took a few shows to get everything to click and thanks to some help from a few good friends and harsh critics they got their sound ironed out and have never looked back.

The two created and co-hosted 120 shows together until Dennis decided to make some changes of direction in his life and chose to leave the show in January of 2024.

Despite the change and slight restructuring of the show, Rhydon was called to continue the journey and knew that the show must go on because the #TradeCrew and loyal fans were here to stay.

Rhydon brings years of installing mechanical contractor knowledge and field sales plus a decade of awarded distributor Territorial Management to the table. With an understanding of everything from basic residential and light commercial products to some of the biggest pieces of equipment in the industry Rhydon brings out the conversation in all of his guests to keep the #TradeCrew entertained and educated.

HVAC R&D stands for Research and Development and the pursuit of building a better, more knowledgeable community of HVAC Tradespeople by learning from the past to help us all be better for the future. Through their show he hopes to inspire listeners, contractors, customers and all of the #TradeCrew to do their own research and development for themselves to experience future growth in both their personal and professional lives.

Whenever Rhydon has some spare time he can typically found at a Craps table throwing a 4-2:2-4 set looking to win it big so that he can travel the country as HVAC R&D and be king of the counter day.