It wasn't all snow and vendor booths on the first day of the 2014 AHR Expo in New York. Over on 42nd Street, the second Control Trends Awards spiced up Tuesday's midday schedule at the B.B. King Blues Club & Grill.

The co-founders of the CTA's are Eric Stromquist and Ken Smyers, while the day's emcee duties and typically clever music selections (e.g., Beatles' "Help!" being played for the Best Technical Support award) were handled by Marc Petock, VP Marketing at Lynxspring. Check out the CTA site at www.controltrends.org.

Let's run down a partial list of winners (look for full list in the March issue):

• VFD of the Year - ABB

• Best Marketing Tools & Support - Honeywell

• Commercial Product of the Year - DGLogik

• Building Application of the Year - DGLogik

• Building Automation Controller of the Year - EasyIO FG-32 Beast from the East

• Building Automation System of the Year - Honeywell WEBs

• Best Peripheral Products from a Small Manufacturer - ACI

• Most Valuable Support Person - (tie) James Johnson (Vykon) and Chris Lane (Johnson Controls)

• Best Technical Support (Vendor) - EasyIO

• Best Commercial HVAC Vendor - JCI

• ControlTrends Person Of The Year (Passion - Integrity - Dedication) - Ed Merwin (Vykon)

• Petock Award - John Petze (SkyFoundry)

But as you can see from the photos, the CTA event featured a lot more than just handing out hardware. And we don't even have photographic evidence of the special appearances by "Austin Powers" and "Marilyn Monroe." Maybe next year ...