Cool Air, Hot Takes

For over a century, heavy machinery has run on hydraulics: fluid-filled systems that leak, wear out, and slow down over time. But a new belt-driven actuator technology inspired by human muscle movement is offering a fluid-free alternative that outperforms hydraulics in speed, efficiency, and durability. Today, Charlie and Dan speak with Hiten Sonpal, CEO of RISE Robotics and a 20-year robotics veteran whose background includes lead...

From submarines to servers, today’s guest is Adrian Hilderbrand, a former nuclear electrician’s mate who breaks down how the skills that kept a nuclear reactor cool translate directly to keeping hyperscale data centers running. Now a principal technical program manager at Eaton, Adrian shares why he thinks small modular reactors are the next big leap for both data centers and local communities. 

This conversation al...

U.S. electricity demand just rose for the first time in over two decades, and the data behind that shift is reshaping how HVAC engineers, contractors, and manufacturers need to think about energy planning. Today, Charlie and Dan speak with Lisa Jacobson, a 20-year energy policy veteran who has testified before Congress and represented the U.S. in U.N. climate talks, to unpack the 2026 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook. This an...

Your favorite Midwestern duo is back in the studio!

Charlie and Dan are cranking Season 5 of Cool Air, Hot Takes into high gear, and there’s a lot to unpack. Energy, data centers, and other game-changers for the engineers and industry pros running these systems – to name a few.

You’ll hear from industry insiders who’ll finally tell you where all those stats everyone loves to quote actually come from, plus engi...

While our team is cooking up Season 5, we're throwing it back to one of our favorite episodes from past seasons.

Today, Ali Heydari, Director of Data Center Cooling and Infrastructure at NVIDIA, joins hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry to unpack how AI “factories” are reshaping data center design and why Ali thinks the AI revolution is the biggest change to the our lives since the industrial revolution. Ali explains why ...

While our team is cooking up Season 5, we're throwing it back to one of our favorite episodes from past seasons.

Industrial heat accounts for approximately a quarter of global energy consumption, says Ruth Checknoff, today’s guest, and is the key to hitting climate targets. 

Today on Cool Air, Hot Takes, Dan and Charlie welcome Ruth Checknoff, Senior Project & Research Director at the Renewable Thermal Collabo...

While our team is cooking up Season 5, we're throwing it back to one of our favorite episodes from past seasons. 

Is AI really the future of HVAC, or just industry hype?

In this episode of Cool Air, Hot Takes, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry talk with Jean-Simon Venne, CTO and co-founder of BrainBox AI, about how artificial intelligence is reshaping HVAC systems. They explore real-world ways AI boosts energy efficiency, enhan...

Take our survey: We love making Cool Air, Hot Takes™, but we want to make sure you love listening to it. Head to podpolls.com/hottakes, fill out our quick listener survey, and give us your hottest takes about the show. 

Today on Cool Air, Hot Takes™, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry sit down with Frank Kohout, a 35-year HVAC engineer veteran who spent a big chunk of his career at McDonald's Global. If you've ever walked i...

Take our survey: We love making Cool Air, Hot Takes™, but we want to make sure you love listening to it. Head to podpolls.com/hottakes, fill out our quick listener survey, and give us your hottest takes about the show.  

Today on Cool Air, Hot Takes™, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry sit down with Angie Simon, mechanical engineer, former president of a $125 million mechanical contractor, SMACNA President, and now co-founder o...

Today on Cool Air, Hot Takes™, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry celebrate a milestone: Trane's Graduate Training Program turns 100. Kris Gagermeier, Trane’s Director, Technical Training Center of Excellence joins to walk through the program's origins, how it's evolved over a century, and where AI fits into the next chapter of HVAC workforce development, including what it takes to get through 14 weeks in La Crosse. 

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Today on Cool Air, Hot Takes™, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry sit down with Matt Caldwell, Director of AI & Cloud Data Centers at Hyper, a company building low-voltage electrical equipment for the data centers powering the AI boom. Matt makes the case that the US-China AI race makes the 1960s space race look like a warm-up lap — and explains why the industry needs to rethink how it designs, manufactures, and deploys i...

Today on Cool Air, Hot Takes™, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry sit down with Mike Dawson, VP of Sales at Parklane Mechanical, a company that's been solving industrial noise problems for over 30 years. Data centers are booming, and we've all heard the noise about them. Turns out, they're also just literally loud. Neighbors have opinions about that. Mike breaks down how noise control works, why it needs to be part of the conversat...

Season 4 is here! Hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry are back in the studio, fresh off the floor at AHR 2026 in Las Vegas, where the Cool Air, Hot Takes™ booth was open for business, t-shirts were flying, and the industry had lots to say. 

This week, Charlie and Dan break down their hot takeaways from the expo — from the CDU arms race taking over every corner of the exhibit hall, to a surprising surge in electrifi...

Hot takes, cool systems, and zero fluff — Season 4 of Cool Air, Hot Takes ™ from Trane is here. Join Charlie and Dan as they bring in the sharpest minds in the industry to break down what's actually happening in heating, cooling, and building technology. AI, refrigerants, heat pumps, data centers, and whatever else is keeping engineers up at night.  

Cool Air, Hot Takes ™ is brought to you by Trane Commercial, par...

Today, we’re wrapping season 3 with a deep dive into industrial high-temperature heat pumps. Hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry talk with Mobola Dosumu, National Sales Manager for Heat Pumps at Everllence, whose custom-engineered systems deliver multi-megawatt heating and up to 350°C steam for heavy industry and district energy. Mobola explains why these heat pumps aren’t “what’s next”, they’re a...

In this special end of year episode, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry are flying solo and taking you on a tour of 2025’s hottest (and coldest) takes. From bold industry predictions and legendary pop-ins, to the now iconic reminder to “never fall in love with a bearing technology,” the guys look back at the takes that shook the HVAC world, and the ones that never quite left the factory floor. (Yes, Dan, we’...

Today, hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry are joined by an HVAC legend, Mick Schwedler. With more than 43 years at Trane and former Global ASHRAE President, Mick reflects on how the industry has evolved from floppy disks and early energy modeling to digital design, electrified heating, and systems-level innovation. He explains why giving engineers just a bit more time and budget leads to better, more efficient buildings, and why HV...

Today, Autodesk’s Director of Product Management, Ian Molloy, joins hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry to explore how digital design is transforming the built environment. We dig into where building information modelling (BIM) is heading, what truly defines a digital twin, and how Autodesk and Trane are closing the gap between modeling and load calculations. Ian also explains how prefab workflows are speeding up construction ...

We’re back with another data-center-deep-dive - this time with Jason Espeseth, Principal Electrical Engineer at Geronimo Power. Together with hosts Charlie Jelen and Dan Gentry, Jason breaks down the rise of “bring your own power” data centers and explains how pairing wind, batteries, and firming gas near-site can dramatically reduce interconnection timelines and avoid passing grid costs to ratepayers. We also tal...