The Ohio Florist Association Short Course is the biggest greenhouse industry trade show in America, so it was with a fair amount of excitement that we set up the Thayer booth and unveiled our intentions of providing heating solutions to commercial growers and industry partners.

The show gathers businesses that supply commercial greenhouses, as well as retail growers looking for new varieties of plants and academics interested in new technologies being offered. It’s a great cross-section of networking opportunities, and gave us a good chance to develop relationships with commercial growers as well as other suppliers who might become partners.

Thayer Corp has core strength in designing and installing HVAC systems using traditional fuels, so this was a great opportunity to develop leads and make contacts. We’re excited by the prospect of applying our expertise in fossil fuel systems to the commercial greenhouse industry. We create biomass systems as well, which was the biggest surprise of the show: the interest in biomass. In general, the greenhouse industry has not been a big consumer of biomass systems, so we were a little surprised that so many folks were interested in our biomass offerings. We think it’s a reflection of the “greening” of the industry as well as increased efficiency in biomass systems. In the Northeast, biomass systems usually burn wood chips and pellets, but it other parts of the country, the fuel might be hay, switch grass, even barn waste. It makes for very efficient and localized fuel use, which is often a cost savings. We’re glad Thayer Corp can be a resource for biomass information too.

The end result of our long weekend in Ohio has been some great new contacts, several solid sales leads, and a good introduction for Thayer Corp to a new industry.