After nearly 37 years with RedDOT, Technical Steward Robert Brocx has retired. He’s not going far, though; distributors and customers who’ve relied on him over the years can still expect to hear from him. As he steps back, we caught up with Robert to talk about his career, where the industry is headed and what’s next for him.
Q: You’ve retired. What does that mean for the folks who are used to calling you directly?
A: After almost 37 years, you build a lot of relationships. Some of our customers don’t even call customer service anymore; they just call me. I’m not going to stop answering their questions. I still have very fond feelings for RedDOT, and I want the company to do well.
Q: How did you end up at RedDOT in the first place?
A: I came out of Central Washington University’s Electronics Engineering Technology program. Gary Hansen liked that program and the people who came out of it, so I got hired before I even graduated. Almost everyone in my graduating class went to Boeing that year; it was just the thing at the time. But I told Gary I couldn’t start until after I got married and got back from my honeymoon. I graduated June 14, got married June 17, and started when I got back. I started as a test engineer, learning air conditioning from scratch alongside the instrumentation work I was actually hired to do.
Q: Looking back at nearly four decades in this industry, what project stands out the most?
A: The up-armored Humvee. The military needed air conditioning fast because they were armoring the vehicles and troops could no longer open a door or roll down a window. It got brutally hot inside. We built the system, tested it at proving grounds like Aberdeen and Yuma, and trained the mechanics who’d be installing it in the field on all the different variants, the two-door, the four-door, the Marine armor kit and more. That one felt personal because I was closely involved from development through training, and it’s the project I still think about most.
Q: You were heavily involved in getting R-1234yf refrigerant approved for off-highway use. What did that process look like?
A: RedDOT started testing 1234yf back in 2017, but the EPA hadn’t approved it yet for off-highway use since it’s mildly flammable. I gave a presentation on the state of the industry at an AEM conference in Washington, and it turned into four presentations instead of one; I only planned on giving it once. The path forward was submitting a SNAP application as an industry group rather than individually, which took about two years of meetings every other week. We made the final submission in 2022. Honestly, I wasn’t even a fan of yf at first. I liked 134A. But it became clear the industry was moving toward lower-GWP refrigerants whether we liked it or not.
Q: You’ve also written a lot for RedDOT’s technical publications over the years, from tech tips to bylined updates on the refrigerant transition. How does that fit into your work?
A: I’ve put together training material for years, and I’m always refining it. You learn quickly that you have to tailor information to whoever you’re teaching. I come from an engineering background, so I learn best from graphs, but not everyone does. I once gave a two-hour internal training on evaporators, condensers and compressors, and at the end someone asked where the cold air actually comes out. It reminded me that you can cover a lot of ground and still miss the basics for the person in front of you. That’s stuck with me in everything I’ve written since, whether it’s a tech tip or a longer piece on where the industry is headed.
Q: What’s the biggest change coming for the industry right now?
A: January 1, 2028. That’s the deadline for yf-certified evaporators to be legally required, and that includes recreation and powersports, since UTVs fall under the same SNAP application we did for heavy-duty off-highway. Any new application after that date will need a yf-certified evaporator, tested and certified through a formal process. Our OEM customers are meticulous. They’ll want six months of testing before that deadline, so the clock is closer than people think.
Q: What would you tell someone just starting out at RedDOT or in this industry?
A: Take the ESOP seriously. It’s a great thing when you stick around long enough to see it pay off. It doesn’t show up in your paycheck day to day, but it’s there in the background, and it matters.
Q: What are you looking forward to now?
A: I put up a pergola on my back deck, and it’s nice and shady back there. I’ve got hummingbird feeders and a bird feeder, and all kinds of animals come through the yard. My wife, Megan, has a whole list of projects for me. We’ve been married 37 years. Spending an entire career at one company is its own kind of milestone, and I’ve also got a fishing buddy flying in from Scotland in October; we’ve been fishing together since 2000, and we’re headed out for salmon.
