Two New Trustees Join Our Board

Following our recent recruitment campaign, I am pleased to announce Dave Nicholls and Matthew Darby have joined us on the Board of the Trust for the Destruction of Synthetic Refrigerants.

Thank you to all of you who applied for these roles. We had many strong applicants and it is great to know the strength and depth of leadership across our industry, that we look forward to continue working with in the future.  

A bit more about our new trustees, who bring a wealth of industry leadership and experience to their roles:

Dave Nicholls

 Dave has 50 plus years experience within the commercial refrigeration sector as a qualified refrigeration engineer. Dave is also a qualified tutor, with 10 years experience as a national examiner, and curriculum lead.

Dave also has a strong leadership background in the sector, having served on multiple boards including the National Apprenticeship Committee, IRHACE council, several Competenz advisory groups and the WorkSafe refrigerants working group.

On why he wanted to join the Board, Dave said:

"New Zealand is too small to have significant impact upon overall Global Climate Change.  However, we are a small but very sophisticated society with an uncanny ability to innovate. 

Already, we lead the world in the development and implementation of large-scale refrigeration systems based upon Co2, and there is no reason to suspect that level of innovation will not continue."

Matthew Darby

 Matthew is a business owner, leader and advocate of the HVAC&R Industry. He provided us with this overview of why he wanted to become one of our trustees:

"Refrigeration is at the heart of a thriving New Zealand way of life, and it’s with pride I can say it’s been at the heart of my family since Dad first picked up the tools over forty years ago. Dad was one of the best in the game and he taught me to value the people you work with. I’ve taken that into my own family business and while growing it nationwide I’ve learnt:

• We’re up against some of the largest refrigeration multinationals in the world, yet we deliver industry leading technology to some of New Zealand’s biggest companies.

• We know we’ve got it right when customers see refrigeration isn’t “just a cost we have to incur” but a serious competitive advantage.

• Getting it right for the customer + reducing environmental impacts = true success.

New Zealand has so much to offer – we live in a truly spectacular landscape and I believe New Zealanders are always looking to protect that. I’ve been involved in the outdoors from an early age and want to design refrigeration systems that minimise our impact on the environment and since having kids , I feel that’s  even more important. But we don’t just support large organisations. We have some of the best people in the industry whose design skills and install knowledge have seen refrigerated display, coolstore and cooling systems help NZ businesses of all sizes create new markets, develop new products, reduce costs and increase product and brand premiums."

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I know you will join me on congratulating our two new trustees . We're looking forward to the experience, energy and leadership we know Dave and Matthew will bring as they support industry in their role as trustees.

Ngā mihi, 

Richard Lauder
Chair
The Trust for the Destruction of Synthetic Refrigerants