How we pick our product names

In December 2021 we celebrated the launch of our newest generation of controllers: the RC-FLEXair^®. At the launch party, someone asked how we come up with the names for our controllers. It's a fun bit of trivia we thought you might also enjoy.

First-generation family Burke (1986–1997): Named after the street where our distributor at the time was located in Surrey, BC.

Second-generation family MACH (1998–2006): Named because our VP of R&D, James Puritch, said the new controller would be superfast. The speed of sound was good enough for us, and we ran with it.

Third-generation family MACH-Pro (2007–2020): We kept the MACH name because Robin Smith, then facilities engineering manager, said we own the name MACH in the marketplace and it would be foolish to abandon it after only 10 years. So we added the suffix “Pro” and kept it for another 14 years.

Fourth-generation family RC-FLEX: The first document to name the new controller family was circulated on September 8, 2018. After many thought-filled hours and hundreds of thesaurus reviews, we conducted two rounds of voting that involved 50 people and 36 submitted names (we are democratic when it comes to this kind of thing). FLEX speaks to how the product fulfills the Reliable Controls hallmark of flexibility, but there was no way we would get FLEX trademarked because it was just too generic. Our senior hardware electronics developer, Rudolf Erasmus, suggested we prefix FLEX with an RC to make it distinct and tie into our RC-Suite of software. On December 7, 2021, we received the official certificates from the US Patent and Trademark Office awarding us registered trademarks for both the logo and word mark for RC-FLEXair^®. Good timing!

Messages from the team

Matthew Clarkson, product owner, level 2:

“The entire company came together to take the idea of an ethernet VAV controller and make the RC-FLEXair. The Firmware team worked extra hard in the last 5 years, logging over 50,000 hours of development time. Under the hood, the RC-FLEXair is packed with new technologies. We have learned a lot (and overcome many challenges) to meet and surpass the precedent set by the MACH-ProAir™, add new features, make sure that the device is secure, and build a platform for the RC-FLEX family in the future. We are all excited to continue down the road the RC-FLEXair has paved.”

Kerem Gurses, product owner, level 3:

"It's not every day that we release a new family of controllers. This was a very exciting journey for us; we all put a lot of effort into this product. We're very happy with the outcome and look forward to handing this over to our dealer network and making a difference in the world. Thanks for your trust in us. We hope you enjoy the final product as much as we enjoyed developing it."

Mike Osborne, Firmware team manager:

"Back in June 2020, the Firmware team received its first RC-FLEXair prototype order. We knew we had to get some stuff done. The company decided to give a little incentive: cookies! If the Firmware team could meet its sprint goals, it would get a six pack of gourmet cookies from the Cookie Guy here in Victoria. In December we met our goal and had our alpha gate. That work translated to over 1,000 cookies consumed by the Firmware team in 6 months."

Alana Clarke, lead, Technical Communications team:

"The RC-FLEXair was a great opportunity to have access to prototype hardware and software and be able to develop the user documentation."

Chris Howard, system architect:

"One of the most interesting things [for me] about this project is it's the first time since I've worked here [since 2004] that I've had to sit on the outside and watch as the team takes it from creation to completion. All I could do was poke and prod and give advice. It's been really exciting to watch how well everyone has done and how well it came together, and to see how impressive of a product it is now at the end."

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