News
FRED PENHALL TAKES OVER
CAREL SA REINS
O
n 1 August 2018, Fred Penhall took over as managing
director (MD) of Carel Controls South Africa, putting
his extensive industry experience and knowledge behind this
global controls giant.
Penhall took over from Rodney Taylor and is now responsible
for managing the three local offices and its staff. This includes
both the HVAC and the refrigeration portfolios, focusing on
sales, software, and the field support areas in particular.
THE RIGHT EXPERIENCE – A CAREER IN BRIEF
Penhall’s career in HVAC&R spans nearly three decades, as
he started at Heating Centre in 1989, working under Peter
Timm on heat exchangers and taking engineering courses on
the side. However, after getting the opportunity to go into
technical sales, he moved into the wholesale sector. That is
how he eventually ended up as Pretoria branch manager for
Metek. After this, he moved to Africold before relocating to
Singapore in 1995 to work for Danfoss as technical manager
for Southeast Asia.
After six years in Singapore, at this point being part of a
small specialised team selling the Performer Scroll compressor
to OEMs throughout Asia Pacific, Penhall moved to Baltimore
in the US to manage the York account inside the Danfoss key
account organisation.
It was around this time that Danfoss bought Reco in South
Africa and Penhall was proposed to move back to South Africa
to take on the role of sales director. Danfoss later decided to
exit wholesaling and the business was sold to Afrox (which
itself was sold to Linde three months later).
Penhall then took over as MD of Reco but because Linde’s
core business is industrial gas, it became Penhall’s immediate
responsibility to sell the now ‘non-core’ Reco business. The
sale of Reco to Tecsa was realised in 2012 and Penhall then
took on the role of operations director for the merged entity,
TecsaReco.
After two and a half years with TecsaReco, Penhall moved
to join the rapidly growing HC Heat Exchangers as sales and
export manager to assist to establish cross-border partners,
where he remained until he was approached to head up Carel
South Africa.
THE FUTURE IS PROFITABLE
Penhall had to hit the ground running, as Taylor had already
gone by the time that he assumed the role. But, he says, the
competencies within team South Africa are well entrenched
and with the great support from them and the Italian
headquarters, it has been going fantastically well so far.
In terms of future plans, the main focus will be on energy
efficiency, natural refrigerants, and
the Internet of Things — working with
customers to apply Carel’s cutting-
edge technologies and solutions.
With this in mind, he also has plans to
revamp the Carel training facility early
in 2019 and bring back the focus on
training customers to more effectively
utilise all the intelligence contained
within the Carel product portfolio.
In some way, this is another
beginning … RACA
Fred Penhall took over as managing
director of Carel Controls South Africa on
1 August 2018.
www.hvacronline.co.za
RACA Journal I January 2019
7