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Joe Brillhart wins 2017 Norman R. Taylor Award

The Norman R. Taylor Award is the highest individual honor IDEA confers, named after former a former IDEA president known for treating people with respect and humility. IDEA President Rob Thornton presented the award to Joe Brillhart, recognizing Joe's long career with Johnson Controls and tireless advocacy for IDEA. The award was presented at the conclusion of IDEA's 108th Annual conference and Trade Show in Scottsdale, Ariz., on June 28, 2017.

As an active member of IDEA for over 20 years, Joe Brillhart served on the IDEA Board of Directors for 7 years, and served as IDEA Chair from 2012-2013. During his tenure, Joe traveled extensively on behalf of IDEA and was instrumental in IDEA expanding our international role, particularly in the district cooling market in the Middle East.

Joe Brillhart began his career pursuing an electrical engineering degree at Penn State, later switching to a four-year program in HVAC at YORK Division of Borg Warner. In 1976, his first assignment at YORK was to run a Service for YORK in Asia as Regional Service Manager and soon was a worldwide troubleshooter, running projects in the Middle East and Latin America.

In 1982, Joe joined Atlantic Richfield (a large oil company, now part of BP), traveling monthly to Jakarta, Indonesia for eight years before ultimately landing in charge of operations of an offshore Crude and LPG processing plant, including offshore storage and terminal facilities.

In 1990, Joe returned to YORK via the Frick Division where he supported Industrial Refrigeration and later managed service for Absorption Products. He later became Director of Quality Assurance and Product Service for YORK International and in 2003, formed a new integrated group called Industrial Systems, which included all the big chillers and thermally driven equipment.

In 2007, Joe moved to New York City to run the JCI Service business in Manhattan shortly after JCI purchased YORK in late 2005. Five years later, Joe returned to the company's York, PA headquarters to become the Director of Global Industrial Chillers. In 2016, he was named an Engineering Fellow at JCI and finally retired this past March, 2017.

Joe has held a deep commitment to energy efficiency and resource preservation, and has left an indelible mark on the industry with his technical expertise and curiosity, his professionalism, and his abiding interest in helping others.