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Explore The Trades Brings the Plan to Revitalize the HVAC Workforce to “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia”

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Shop Classes Faded, Then the Workforce Thinned.

LOS ANGELES, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — A new Public Television feature examines how a national nonprofit is reintroducing plumbing, HVAC, and electrical careers to American classrooms, and why the coming decade of workforce demand makes that conversation urgent for students, parents, and educators alike.

Explore The Trades will be featured in an upcoming segment of “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia”, set to film on October 2, 2026 at the “All Access” Boca Raton, Florida, studio location and slated for distribution to Public Television stations nationwide. The Minnesota-based nonprofit was started in 2005 by residential home service contractors who had already read the labor forecasts and did not like what they saw. Their answer was to work upstream, at the classroom level, long before a student picks a path.

The feature covers how that work happens now. Poster kits, produced in English and Spanish with a separate series for grades K through 5, have reached more than 1.3million students since 2021 and now sit in over 3,400 school districts, roughly a quarter of the country. The Skills Lab Program, Supported by industry partners like plumbing and HVAC distributor Ferguson and the Comfort Systems USA Foundation, has placed equipment grants in 53 schools across 21 states since 2022. Contractors get recruiting toolkits of their own. Counselors, career and technical education instructors, and administrators are as much the audience as the students themselves, because they are the ones fielding the questions.

“When a student hears the word ‘trades,’ we want them to picture diagnostics, innovation, and a spirit of entrepreneurship, because that’s what these careers look like now. Tradespeople built this nation, and as technology keeps advancing, plumbing, heating, cooling, and electrical professionals will keep building it for generations to come. The skilled workforce of tomorrow is sitting in classrooms today. These aren’t just jobs. They’re career continuums that can grow from apprentice to technician to business owner, and our communities simply can’t operate without them,” Kate Cinnamo, Executive Director, Explore The Trades.

The context matters. Construction and trades coursework disappeared from thousands of schools in the early 2000s, pushed aside by a college-for-all consensus that treated a four-year degree as the only respectable outcome. Districts are now reversing course, helped along by rising federal investment in career and technical education. Meanwhile the shortage that contractors predicted two decades ago has arrived and is expected to persist for at least another ten years. Somebody has to install the systems that heat hospitals, move water through schools, and carry power to everything else. The question of who promotes those careers remains genuinely unsettled between industry and education.

Perception is the other obstacle, and it is stubborn. Plumbing, HVAC, and electrical work now involve diagnostics, connected equipment, energy modeling, and an expanding role for artificial intelligence in product design and service delivery. Technicians read data. Many go on to own businesses. Sustainable infrastructure and smart building systems depend on people who understand both the physics and the software. Yet the word trades still conjures grime for plenty of parents. Explore The Trades argues that industry and education partnerships pay both sides back, giving schools expertise and equipment while giving local employers a durable pipeline of talent.

About “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia”: “All Access hosted by Andy Garcia” is a short-form educational documentary series distributed to Public Television stations across the country. Each feature profiles organizations, institutions, and companies whose work is reshaping their fields, presenting the subject matter in plain terms for a general audience. The series favors substance over promotion, giving viewers a working understanding of industries and issues they encounter but rarely see explained. More information about the program is available at allaccessptv.com.

About Explore The Trades: Explore The Trades is a national nonprofit working to close the technical talent gap in the plumbing, HVAC, and electrical industries. Founded in 2005 by home service contractors, the organization connects education and industry through classroom career resources, equipment grants for middle and high school programs, and workforce development toolkits for employers. Its programs serve students in grades K through 12 along with the counselors, instructors, and administrators who guide them. Details on the Poster Kit Program, the Skills Lab Program, and how to request materials for a local school are available at www.explorethetrades.org.

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SOURCE All Access

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Resonant Link Medical Launches Next-Generation Vivigo™, the Industry’s Most Advanced Wireless Power Platform for Implantable Medical Devices

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The universal wireless power and data platform combines innovative technology, validated engineering tools, and rapid integration services to help implantable device companies reduce development risk and accelerate commercialization.

BURLINGTON, Vt., Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ — Resonant Link Medical, an innovative medical technology company redefining wireless power and data transfer for implantable devices, today announced the launch of Vivigo™ 2.0, its next-generation wireless power platform for implantable medical devices. Built on Resonant Link Medical’s proven Aurion WPT™ technology, Vivigo™ gives device developers a ready-to-integrate platform for wireless power that reduces risk, accelerates development, and helps bring life-changing technologies to market faster. The platform delivers ultra-fast wireless energy transfer over an extended range, enabling a new generation of implantable technologies that are smaller, smarter, and longer lasting. It supports both rechargeable implants, with charging in as little as 20 minutes, and battery-free devices requiring uninterrupted wireless power.

Vivigo™ gives innovators an advanced wireless power platform that enables smaller, smarter implantable devices designed for MRI compatibility while reducing development risk and accelerating the path to commercialization

For decades, most implantable medical devices were intentionally designed around the limitations of non-rechargeable batteries because developing safe, reliable, and patient-friendly wireless power systems was too complex, too risky, and too difficult to integrate. Today, implantable devices are evolving beyond simple therapy delivery to incorporate continuous sensing, high-speed data transfer, artificial intelligence, and closed-loop algorithms. Together, these capabilities require substantially more power than previous generations of implantable devices, making advanced wireless power an essential enabling technology. Vivigo™ changes the equation by providing a wireless power platform that reduces development risk and gives innovators the confidence to build the next generation of smaller, smarter, longer-lasting implantable medical devices.

“Implantable devices are becoming dramatically more intelligent, but they can’t become more intelligent without fundamentally rethinking how they’re powered,” said Omari Bouknight, CEO of Resonant Link Medical. “Vivigo™ gives innovators an advanced wireless power platform that enables smaller, smarter implantable devices designed for MRI compatibility while reducing development risk and accelerating the path to commercialization. Medical device companies shouldn’t have to become wireless power experts to bring breakthrough therapies to patients. With Vivigo™, they can build on our platform and focus their time, energy, and innovation where it matters most: creating the next generation of intelligent implantable medicine.”

Media Contact

Rachel Allard, Resonant Link Medical, 1 802-448-8220, rallard@rlmedical.com, https://rlmedical.com/

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SOURCE Resonant Link Medical

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CyberRatings.org and NSS Labs Announce 2026 Cloud Network Firewall Test Results

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Security Effectiveness Ranges from 0% to 99.95%

AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — CyberRatings.org (CyberRatings), the non-profit organization dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through independent testing, today announced the results of its latest Cloud Network Firewall (CNFW) evaluation. Tests were conducted by NSS Labs and are now available at no cost on the CyberRatings.org website.

Only 4 out of 9 were Recommended. Native cloud firewalls were far less consistent than dedicated 3rd party offerings.

Of the nine products tested, only four earned a Recommended rating and native cloud firewalls were far less consistent than dedicated third-party offerings. Each of the Recommended products achieved 99.7% or higher in Security Effectiveness:

Fortinet FortiGate Next-Generation FirewallHPE Juniper Networking vSRX Next Generation FirewallPalo Alto Networks VM-Series Next-Generation FirewallVersa Networks Next Generation Firewall

Check Point CloudGuard Network Security Next-Gen Firewall earned a Neutral rating despite the highest Security Effectiveness at 99.95% due to its above-average price per Mbps.

AWS Network Firewall and Microsoft Azure Firewall both received 0% for Security Effectiveness, resulting in their Caution ratings. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) NGFW Enterprise at 77.45% Security Effectiveness and Cisco Secure Firewall Threat Defense Virtual at 66.10% Security Effectiveness also placed them in Caution.

Products from cloud service providers and third-party security vendors (the latter deployed on Amazon Web Services) were evaluated under identical conditions using the NSS Labs Cloud Network Firewall Test Methodology v4.1, with real-world exploits, evasion techniques, malware, false-positive samples, and sustained enterprise traffic loads.

Evasions were tested with 5,004 attacks spanning 43 techniques across OSI Layers 3, 4, and 7. Attackers use evasions to disguise malicious traffic and bypass inspection; one successful evasion can enable an entire class of exploits or malware, so strong evasion handling is essential.

“With attackers routinely using evasion techniques to slip past inspection, the products that earned a Recommended rating this year proved they can hold up under real conditions,” said Vikram Phatak, CEO of CyberRatings.org. “Buyers should weigh evasion resistance and TLS inspection as heavily as raw block rates.”

Recommendations for Buyers

Test regularly. Agile development and CI/CD pipelines let vendors ship improvements quickly, but rapid change can also introduce regressions that quietly erode protection.Treat native cloud firewalls as a baseline, not a finish line. Validate exploit blocking, malware blocking, and evasion resistance against organizational requirements before relying on a native offering as a primary control.Require TLS inspection and weigh evasion resistance heavily. A firewall that cannot inspect encrypted traffic leaves a substantial blind spot, and a single successful evasion can enable an entire class of attacks.Re-evaluate firewall requirements for AI and agentic workloads. Local AI models and agentic workflows will consume more network resources and drive larger, more complex policies, including east-west agent-to-agent traffic.Hold vendors accountable and demand transparency. No product is perfect; what matters is how a vendor responds when a gap is found. A lack of transparency should be treated as a red flag.

NSS Labs is the Official Testing Partner of CyberRatings, generating the test results and reports for CyberRatings publications. NSS Labs proprietary technologies and Keysight’s CyPerf tool were used to test the security, performance, TLS functionality, and stability of Cloud Network Firewalls.

The Cloud Network Firewall Test Reports, Comparative Report and Security Map are available at CyberRatings.org.

About CyberRatings.org

CyberRatings.org is a 501(c)6 non-profit organization dedicated to providing confidence in cybersecurity products and services through our research and testing programs. We provide enterprises with independent, objective ratings of security product efficacy to make informed decisions. To become a member, visit www.cyberratings.org and follow us on LinkedIn.

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SOURCE CyberRatings.org

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Pye-Barker Fire & Safety Acquires Union AlarmTronic, LLC, Continuing Security Alarm Service Expansion in the Northeast

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ATLANTA, Sept. 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Pye-Barker Fire & Safety — the largest fully integrated and full-service fire protection, life safety and security services provider in the United States — has acquired Union AlarmTronic, LLC, a security alarm company based in Springfield, New Jersey. The acquisition adds to Pye-Barker’s growing presence in the state by deepening operational security capacity, expertise and local service.

Union AlarmTronic, LLC, established in 1989, has built over 20,000 security installations. The company provides a wide range of security systems and services, including access control and video surveillance, as well as intercom, integrated security, and alarm systems. Union AlarmTronic is led by industry veteran Fred Rosenfeld, who got his start in the business with his father, Len Rosenfeld.

“We have proudly protected people and property and provided high-caliber service to customers in New Jersey for decades,” said Fred Rosenfeld, owner of Union AlarmTronic. “With Pye-Barker, we will continue our commitment to install and maintain security systems that protect customers while being able to offer expanded full-service fire protection.”

“When we met with team members at Union AlarmTronic, their passion for customers and their community stood out,” said Bart Proctor, CEO of Pye-Barker Fire & Safety. “Incorporating their expertise, service and team approach into the Pye-Barker family enables us to protect even more people in the state.” 

The Union AlarmTronic team of highly trained technicians will continue to serve customers in New Jersey. Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough, LLP represented Pye-Barker. Mesirow Investment Banking was the exclusive advisor to Union AlarmTronic.

About Pye-Barker Fire & Safety

As the U.S. leader in fully integrated life safety systems, Pye-Barker Fire & Safety provides complete fire protection and security systems nationwide. With over 250 locations and 9,000 team members, Pye-Barker is Great Place to Work® Certified™ and is also listed on the Inc. 5000 and ranks No. 3 on the SDM 100.

Visit pyebarkerfs.com/acquisitions to learn why we’re the industry’s acquirer of choice.   

Contact:
Philip H Gardner
EVP, Business Development – M&A
philip.gardner@pyebarkerfs.com

Media Contact: 
James Taylor
jtaylor@fulltiltconsulting.com

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SOURCE Pye-Barker Fire & Safety

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