Maston's leadership arrives at a pivotal moment for the HVAC industry. While new construction continues adopting high-efficiency systems and heat pumps, the massive installed base of older commercial and institutional buildings remains the sector's largest energy consumer. Her presidency signals that ASHRAE will push harder on retrofit standards, performance metrics, and resilience benchmarks for existing structures — the majority of which were designed before modern energy codes existed.

The timing aligns with federal incentives under the Inflation Reduction Act, which dedicates billions to commercial building energy upgrades through 179D tax deductions and state energy office grants. Contractors working in institutional, healthcare, and commercial markets should expect more clients asking about comprehensive system audits, IAQ upgrades tied to resilience planning, and phased equipment replacement strategies that meet evolving ASHRAE 90.1 and 62.1 standards.

Maston's emphasis on teamwork points to a cross-industry approach. That means engineers, contractors, and controls specialists need to coordinate earlier in the retrofit process. A piecemeal approach — swapping a chiller here, a rooftop unit there — won't meet the resilience goals Maston outlined. Instead, projects will increasingly demand integrated designs: variable refrigerant flow systems with backup power provisions, advanced air filtration for wildfire smoke events, and adaptive controls that respond to grid stress and extreme weather.

For contractors, this translates to three immediate action items. First, update your retrofit proposal templates to include resilience language — backup power compatibility, enhanced filtration options, and grid-interactive controls. Second, familiarize yourself with ASHRAE's Building Energy Quotient (bEQ) program, which is gaining traction as the standard for measured building performance. Third, consider partnering with energy auditors and commissioning agents on larger projects, because owners will expect documented performance improvements, not just equipment swaps.

The question for the next year: will the industry's supply chain and workforce scale fast enough to meet the retrofit demand Maston is championing? Labor shortages and long equipment lead times remain the bottleneck, even as project funding becomes available.