AAON Geothermal RQ Series Rooftop Unit Is Winner in ACHR News 2011 Dealer Design Competition

TULSA, OK--(Marketwire - Jul 11, 2011) - AAON (NASDAQ: AAON) was recognized for excellence in product design in the 8th annual Dealer Design Awards Program sponsored by The Air Conditioning Heating & Refrigeration News magazine. An independent panel of 30 contractors acted as judges in the contest that had 127 entries from over 80 different brands. The company's Geothermal RQ Series, 2-6 ton rooftop unit, was a Silver Award Winner in the HVAC High Efficiency Residential Equipment category. The ACHR News is the leading trade magazine in the heating, ventilating, air conditioning, and refrigeration industries.

News Publisher John Conrad stated, "These awards give us a unique opportunity to recognize the outstanding research and development efforts that go into many of the products serving the HVACR industry and the awards issue gives our readers an opportunity to read about innovative installation and service solutions."

The geothermal RQ Series variable capacity compressors modulate from 10% to 100%, providing precise temperature control and energy savings at part load. The double wall, foam insulated cabinet, with an industry leading thermal resistivity of R13, provides significant energy savings. Direct driven fans eliminate energy losses and noise caused by belts. AAON leads the industry in high efficiency rooftop units, with the geothermal RQ offering efficiencies over 22 EER. A geothermal rooftop unit saves indoor building space by placing the unit on the rooftop instead of indoors. In addition, a rooftop unit can be serviced without disturbing the indoor building environment such as classrooms, offices and leased spaces.

"The recognition of the Geothermal RQ series Rooftop Units in the 2011 Dealer Design Awards demonstrates our continuing commitment to designing and engineering innovative and high performance HVAC equipment," said Norm Asbjornson, President and CEO of AAON.

Winning entries in the Dealer Design Awards were featured in the July 11, 2011 issue of The ACHR News, which is distributed nationally to over 33,000 HVACR contractors, wholesalers, and other industry professionals.

About AAON

AAON is engaged in the engineering, manufacturing, marketing and sale of air conditioning and heating equipment consisting of standard, semi-custom and custom rooftop units, chillers, boilers, air handling units, make-up air units, heat recovery units, condensing units and coils. Since the founding of AAON in 1988, AAON has maintained a commitment to design, develop, manufacture and deliver heating and cooling products to perform beyond all expectations and demonstrate the value of AAON to our customers. For more information, please visit www.aaon.com.