votec

Unknown

I have more negative experiences than good @ the trade schoiol I went to. With our trade needing new people and the serious problem of not enough good help, how cxan we improve the condition & future of the trade?

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Firedragon_4

GREAT QUESTION!!!

Get involved and bring about the change! About 5 years ago I got really hot on this since I'm calling on vo-tecs all of the time to sell my books. Call it survival!

BTW, I have a standing offer to any vo-tech that sends me a written request for a complete set of my books, FREE!!!

After that I had Alan Mercurio (www.oiltechtalk.com) get hot on it too!

NAOHSM got hot on it with an adopt-a-school program a couple of years ago and there's a lot more to do. BUT, I truly believe that no group can do this, it takes grass-roots, one-on-one involvement!

Volunteer to teach, help in the lab, anything to make the good teachers stay with it and drum the bums out! The industry is full of quasi-sales-teachers, good grief! We need REAL instructors, badly! Most of the guys who were good and left tell me it was mostly because no one seemed to care what the schools were putting out and at the public level budgets are a killer.

In private and industry schools the problem is again apathy and the feeling that most are diploma mills that get them licensed and turn'em loose. I always thought that this idea was really %$#@*, but the people in charge seem to be pleased as all get out with it.

The trade MUST help itself, so what's new??? In the next five years from what I'm seeing in the classrooms we will reach critical mass and expect another group of sell-outs and a load of conversions to gas. Why? Because homeowners don't have to stand for this and they won't, that FACT has already been proven millions of times in our history in the oil business. Sorry to rant about my own, but we live the life everyday.

As to other HVAC tradesmen and plumbers; if the quality of the work doesn't come up more, if there continues to be a shortage of people and the prices keep being gouged in many areas more and more people will seek out the big box for help. If we lose this we have no one to blame but ourselves!

Jim Eastman

VoTech

I had a good experience with the program at Red Rocks Community College in the Denver area. The hydronics portion of the cirriculum is taught by Mark Eatherton, one of our reliable Wetheads in the industry. Mark has really stepped up to pass on his knowledge in this program. I am absolutely sure that Mark is getting quite wealthy doing this at Red Rocks! Yah sure!

Mark sparked a passion for hydronic heating for me. As a service technician, I would much rather be servicing, redisigning, rebuilding, replacing or enhancing a hydronic system than work with scorched air or A/C! Thanks to Mark for his enthusiastic Wethead education committment! Any superior Wethead could step up to help his/her Community College VoTech program in this area. Perhaps Mark would even share his lesson plans that he worked so hard to perfect?

Jim Eastman
Precision Plumbing
Boulder, CO

Unknown

Jim you have been blessed

Mark is a real fine teacher. He is dedicated to what he does. The sad truth is that not many of those kind are around. Many good instructors get burned out before long.

Unknown

George, the oil industry is way ahead

of the gas industry as far as offering training. The gas comanies are more interested in selling gas than training any one to service their gas equipment.

I can not even get an invite to do a seminar for the GasNetworks here in New England. There emphasis is on the selling and installing of equipment not the servicing if it fails.

The gas companies stopped doing service and left a very large vacuum here in the North East. With all of their money they should be supporting training programs like NAOSHM is, I do not see any hope for the future if we do not get some gas training offered to the new techs. The gas systems have something to offer to the young guys as the challenges and technology is there.

It was like pulling teeth here in RI just to get approved to train new personnel on gas systems. A lot of politics involved. The Voc Tech programs here are very poor and most do not offer any thing in the way of plumbing and heating. School systems are hurting for money and cutting out Voc Tech programs left and right.

I am doing everything I can but can not get anyone from the gas companies to listen to me. They do not realize that if no one can repair their gas equipment people will turn to oil. That is a FACT!!!