CGA – 2020 Year in Review

As has been our tradition moving into a new year, we want to take stock of the year we leave behind.

2020 was a year like no other in recent memory. All aspects of our work and our lives were upended by the pandemic. Over 420,000 lives were lost in the U.S. and Canada. Thousands of businesses closed, and those that survived pivoted to new ways of working and interacting with customers. This includes the compressed gas industry and CGA.

Our industry played a critical role in responding to the pandemic. We supply the most important treatment for COVID-19, medical oxygen, as well as carbon dioxide used for dry ice for the vaccine, and many other gases used to support critical infrastructure and supply chains.

As our members worked to provide essential products and equipment to health care facilities, the Compressed Gas Association led the development of industry messaging to educate authorities and the media about the availability, transportation, and use of these products.

We worked with authorities to obtain exemptions from regulatory requirements that created barriers to a swift response to the pandemic. We led a coalition of industry associations advising the White House on the availability of carbon dioxide for food, beverage, medical needs, and more. We developed a COVID-19 Toolkit with resources, updates, and guidance from health officials to support our industry during this perilous time.

Even with our focus on these critical efforts, CGA continued with our core mission – developing safety standards in the industrial, medical, and food gases industry. As we adapted to a new way of work, we found new opportunities to stay connected – through our CGAConnect educational series that allowed us to reach our members no matter where they were working from; in the launch of our Young & Emerging Professionals Committee that connected us with an entirely new audience of industry professionals; and in our outreach to end users to promote safe use of industry products.

The Year in Review infographic below provides but a snapshot of the key work that we accomplished together in 2020. Much of this work will continue in 2021, as will our work on the frontlines of combatting the pandemic.

Thank you to all CGA members for your continued support of the Association. I wish you, your family, and your colleagues a safe and healthy new year.

Rich Gottwald
President & CEO
Compressed Gas Association