Tales from the trenches, stories forged in the fires of experience.
It is our mission to provide you with the resources that you need to be successful in
the HVACR and building sciences professions.
Learn more about what we can do to help you at escogroup.org.
All right everyone, thank you so much for joining us once again on Did You Know?
The ESCO HVAC Podcast.
So we are preparing to head off to the National HVACR Education Conference.
I'm hanging out with Ty Branaman.
Ty, how are you my friend?
Doing fantastic.
So excited for the show.
I know, it's so crazy.
It's like we build up, we build up and then all of a sudden it's like oh my goodness.
It's like days away.
Making sure everything is prepared.
So I kind of, the reason we want to do this podcast is I kind of felt that way when I
walked into the classroom the first time.
And we're going to have a lot of new educators and educators that are just coming back.
Like last year we had so many first year educators and I imagine probably all or if not most
of them will be back this year.
But I wanted to talk about that first year in the classroom because there's a lot of
things that we can prepare for and there's a lot of things that we may not have even
thought about.
So I wanted to share some personal experiences of both of us and talk about that first year
and the resources that we really need to become an effective educator, a new educator.
I remember that first year was so exciting and so scary all in one.
It was just a complete ball of both.
When I first started I didn't even know that I could do this.
And there was a friend of mine and she was like you always talk about HVAC everywhere
we go.
Every Duckwork, every unit, you're obsessed with it.
She goes why don't you get into teaching where you can talk to somebody else about it.
And so there was this job posting that she found at the school in Miami and I was living
in the Florida Keys at the time.
And so I went and applied for it and then didn't hear anything back for a little while.
And then they called me and said hey can you, we want to hire you.
Can you come in and start, how soon can you start?
I said well I got to give at least a two weeks notice.
It's going to take some time.
And they said well can you come in and start teaching after work so we can start training
you.
I'm like yeah I think so.
I can think it's going to be some long hours with that drive.
And they said well can you start today?
Can you come in at least do the paperwork today?
I said well I mean it's last minute but I guess I can.
So I had to tell the boss that he was super upset about it.
So then I went straight to the school to start doing paperwork.
And I'm in my company uniform.
And I'm sweating out of the field.
And they said hey well this is taking a little bit longer.
We can do this later.
We want to show you the school.
I'm like well you showed me when I first applied.
They said well we'll take you on another tour.
You have time.
I'm like yeah sure.
And so they took me straight to this classroom.
They said how do you say your name?
I said well it's Ty Brandeman.
They said okay.
And she had this funny look.
And then so she walks into the class and says hey class this is Mr. Ty.
He's going to be your instructor.
She handed me the book and she walked out.
And I was just completely like oh my what happened.
And so I asked the class what they were talking about.
And they said we're talking about heat pumps.
So I set the book down and we just started talking about heat pumps.
And you know I've been hooked on it ever since.
I love that.
Mine couldn't be as far opposite as that.
It can't be.
Oh my gosh.
I love that.
It's like you walk in and boom it's right here in front.
There was no prepared you're just in it.
You're jumping in feet first.
So mine I was a technician.
So I was a mobile engineer and working on commercial refrigeration and HVAC.
And I thought I was going to be there the rest of my life.
I had no intentions of doing anything other than that.
Because I enjoyed it.
And it was a really good job.
And I had a recruiter reach out and he said Mr. Beck you're probably not looking for a
job.
But I was looking over your LinkedIn.
And I think you're supposed to be an educator and you've missed the bar.
Can we have breakfast or lunch and talk about that and let me tell you why.
And I thought well that's interesting.
And so I decided I was going to give it a try.
And I was so nervous.
I was like oh my gosh.
Everything had to be right.
Right.
I had time to prepare.
I had a few weeks.
I had to buy me a new jacket, new shirt, new shoes, new pants.
I've got all of my best gear all lined up.
And I'm going to do a intro into refrigeration course.
I'm like oh man this is going to be so much fun.
So we've got the class all set up.
Remember I was working at a distributor.
And so it was contractors that were coming in for classes.
And so I get all prepared.
I'm all psyched.
And I walk into my classroom.
And I'm sitting there and no one shows.
And come to find out that in Indiana there is no state license.
So there's no required CEUs or CEHs.
So in our other branches that were in states like Ohio and Kentucky that had licenses,
the classes were full.
They had tons of people.
I didn't have a single one.
And my heart was broken.
I was crushed.
So I wasn't even sure that I was going to be able to do this thing.
And then the second class was an EPA 608 class and I had 30 people.
And the light bulb happened for me in that class.
Was it your first class that you caught the bug?
Absolutely.
First class.
Yeah.
I was hooked.
Yeah.
So the things that I really would like for us to talk about are the things that I personally
and you personally were not prepared for.
So one, walking into a classroom going here's your class.
That's definitely something not to be prepared for.
What I learned about myself was I learned in the field.
So I had a good mentor.
I had a really good service education.
All right.
I didn't spend a ton of time on new construction and installation.
I was a service guy my entire career for about 20 years worth.
So when I got into the classroom, I started realizing that there were things that, especially
in fundamentals that I didn't understand that other people did.
And so that's when I actually started the 608 was where I got introduced into ESCO.
And then that was in January of 18, I started teaching.
And then 2019, I went to the National HVACR education conference, like we're getting ready
to do here in a few weeks.
And I didn't even know what was happening around me.
I had so many resources.
I had so many things to do and we started talking about educator credentials and certifications.
And so I started looking at, okay, what do I need to do?
What is an educator?
What things do I need to be qualified?
Because I got all of these certifications from out in the industry that are all service
related and none of them on fundamentals.
And the first time I took a course, it was, I'm just going to go for it.
I'm going to go for the electricity course.
And I failed.
I absolutely failed it.
And I went, oh my goodness.
And so it was actually taken a minute to evaluate myself to not know what I do know, but the
things that I don't know.
And by doing that, I was able to use the actual output from the ESCO engine that showed me
what areas of that test I didn't do very well.
So then I was able to go back and really refocus on things.
That was the biggest one for me.
What was the largest obstacle for you when you entered the classroom?
Man, it was, it was boulder after boulder.
I can say I came in straight from the field.
I'd trained a lot of people in the field.
I never went to school myself.
And when I'm in there in the classroom and you're trying to convince people to do something
and in a field, you tell them what you want them to do.
You explain it a few times and so they get it, but you tell them what to do and they
do it.
In the classroom, you get a melting pot of people and they have other jobs and other
lives and they haven't even seen this stuff.
So you're trying to explain something and they have no concept of what this is because
they've never seen it before.
So every single thing that I was talking about, I've realized I had to start showing them
because it was just glass eyes.
And so I started having to show people and explain stuff.
And so that was huge.
And then understanding different demographics of people.
So where I had worked a lot of times was they generalized, you know, a few different demographics
of people that now I had the full variety of people from different countries and different,
you know, accents.
And sometimes I didn't know what they were saying and I had to learn to adapt to that.
And then I remember I was called to the office and I was getting chewed out for the, I think
the third time about the paperwork or the attendance sheets or the logs or the grading
or because all this was new to me.
And I was just overwhelmed because I was still working on a normal job.
I was still driving back and forth, you know, long nights.
And then it was like, you're yelling at me and I can't do this.
This is not, you know, I can do HVAC and this is, you know, I just can't do what you need.
And then she stopped like mid gripe and realized, oh, and she said, OK.
How about you start going and watching other instructors?
So I was already lacking sleep.
Right.
So I started going and I did that.
So I just went to every other class I could possibly go to, like medical and automotive
and like, gosh, there was so many classes.
I just started sitting in and seeing how they taught.
So any chance I could, I would come in early and listen to other instructors.
And so I started seeing, you know, what an instructor does, like how it actually works
and how they communicate, how they overcome problems.
And then from then I did searching online to find out how can I connect with the student?
Because if I can't connect with them in some way, then I'm not going to be able to teach
them.
And at the school was all about making sure everybody's there.
And I didn't know that at the time.
And so I found that once you can connect with people, then and you can make it interesting.
They want to come there.
And that was part one.
Part two was if I'm going to explain something to somebody, I have to know what I'm talking
about.
Like I know TXVs, I solve them all the time, but now I have to explain how they work.
You know, now I have to explain what's happening in that refrigerator because people are asking
questions and I didn't know the answer.
Like, you know what?
We'll talk about that tomorrow.
And so I would go and I would read and I'm not a reader.
Like I struggle with reading.
I read stuff three or four or five or six times and I can't remember what I read.
And so I started having to read and then I started learning how to help with my ADHD,
like how to use highlights, how to make notes, how to do these different things to make it
interesting.
And then so I would have the answers.
And then I realized my students are the same way.
So I started showing them these little tricks about highlights and underlining and notes
and how to, you know, put little sticky notes in places and how to make it where your mind
can focus on what you're reading.
And so they just really connected well.
And so then the students were loving learning.
I was loving learning.
I was loving teaching and everything was going really good.
And I remember I called Esco and I was like, hey, this is like some years went by and I
was like one of the lead instructors.
I thought I was, you know, a badass.
Yeah, I'm doing good.
You know, everybody wants to come to my class.
Other instructors are coming to my class.
Like, yeah.
And so I called Esco and I don't remember exactly who it was to talk to at the time.
And I wanted to take some of the credentialing test.
And the guy was like, well, you know, these are going to be pretty hard for you to pass.
And I was like, how dare you?
I know my stuff.
I know who you're talking to.
And so I was arrogant.
And so I went and took the first class and I bombed.
I was like, at first I was bad at the test.
This test is stupid.
You're not going to use that stuff.
This can't be done right.
That's ridiculous.
That's a little ply.
And so I just had to put my ego down and realize, OK, let's learn.
And so I forced to go back to the books and look at things again.
And I was looking for these little pieces of information.
And then I would find like this massive amount of information that I wasn't looking for.
But I learned so much stuff looking for this one little nugget, this one answer that I
needed.
But I learned this huge amount of information.
So then I was hooked.
I'm like, that's cool.
Let me take another one.
And then I would, even if I pass it, I would take a retake it again because I wanted to
make sure it's not that I had the highest grade, but that I I was learning so much and
I was hooked on the learning.
And I just kept going on until I took all the tests.
And then I started doing other things.
And I was like, man, this guy that almost dropped out of high school that was couldn't
do anything else but be a trades person.
You know, hey, I'm learning all this stuff and applying myself.
And it was it was amazing.
It was it was incredible.
Isn't it crazy how we look at ourselves from a different perspective when we start teaching?
So I'm the same way.
I've got I think three, it might be a fourth one.
I'm working my way through my CSM ease.
And that's my goal is to wrap those up here in 2024.
But they are challenging.
But the beauty of it is it's not like it's a great like we sit in a classroom and we
see what everyone else's grade is.
And we go, oh, I'm never gonna be as good as that person.
Right.
Many of us struggle with that, especially when you get to the ADHD.
I think you and I could probably have a separate podcast just on how many incredibly intelligent
people end up in the trades because of concentration and focus issues in a classroom that thrive
out in the field.
And maybe we end up coming back to that.
But I yeah, I think it is a fantastic point, because one of the reasons that we don't like
to take tests is we don't want to fail.
We don't want to we don't we don't want to fail anyone, let alone ourself.
And the beauty of taking the credentials, the certifications is that we see where we
need to improve, but we are never compared to anybody else.
We have the analytics to see how we compare to the rest of the industry.
But the rest of the industry doesn't look at our results, unless your school administrator
requires and that's a whole nother story.
But for us, it's to learn how to be better.
So I agree, it was probably the most important part for me because I did the same thing.
As I went back and started looking for this, what I thought were small answers, I end up
finding new things about my industry that I didn't even know.
I am I am so involved in things today that I wasn't involved five years ago when I first
started teaching, because I was introduced into it while I was re learning my trade.
And it's the most beautiful thing.
I actually feel like I'm evolving as a technician, even though I'm not in the field like I used
to be.
But I'm becoming a better technician because I'm understanding principles better.
And I'm like you, recommunicating those back to students and to technicians and to instructors.
And I don't know, man, there's just there's something so personal and something so positive
about developing as an educator that I encourage everyone to take the time and just do Google
self evaluation, do some ESCO educator certifications and see where you're at.
And you might surprise yourself.
You might learn a little bit about yourself in the process.
You know, one of the things that we have to challenge yourself with is the well, that's
book stuff and you don't need to know that.
And I've said that before myself and I remember countless times I'll be teaching one of those
topics and I've had these aha moments of, oh my gosh, that explains exactly this problem.
And, you know, in 2006 or 2003, I remember Mrs. Jones, I was having a situation I couldn't
figure it out.
And then all of those things you didn't need to know the answer was there.
I was too stubborn and that book stuff, you know, I didn't need.
And I realized, wow.
And I was every time I'd be teaching a class.
And still to this day, I have these moments to where I learned something new and I'm like
that explains it.
You know, those things it's like, well, it just is.
It's just the way it is.
And it's like, no, it's not.
There's a reason for everything.
And then you get to meet the authors.
And for me, it was like, well, a book like this corporation or something that writes
this.
And you get to meet like people like Eugene and you get to see it's a human.
A person wrote that.
So just like you and me are having a conversation.
The book is that same conversation.
So I started getting authors to sign my books and I would take them back to school and show
the students, hey, this isn't just some machine in the background, some man telling me what
to do.
This is a human that wrote this.
And so I would start showing the autographs of all the different authors I got to meet.
And then the students got to realize, hey, it's not this evil thing.
It's this communication tool.
How about that?
And that's the only place that you can go and just hang out with all of the authors,
the publishers.
That's the crazy thing is that you have, you know, Esco, we are a publishing company of
our own material, but we also, we support and we, we work with our industry partners
that are also publishers to make sure that all of the content is available for the whole
industry.
So you have all these different industry professionals.
And then when you get there in one place, you realize, wow, they're all just like me.
I had no idea.
Yeah.
It's very personal.
It's very, very heartwarming to be in an atmosphere where you know that if you have a question
on something, you can actually go to the person that is the expert on that.
If you have a piece of equipment that you would like to learn on, but you never had
the opportunity to work on out in the field, the, uh, the engineers and the, the, the technical
trainers for those pieces of equipment are going to be right there.
You know, I remember I was at a school and I was, I was just getting kind of on a plane.
I was kind of doing the same thing over and over is getting repetitious.
And we had some other instructors come in and they were teaching some really bad habits
like beer can cold and you know, like a two smokes vacuum at a school.
And it was like, you know, it's kind of depressing.
And I was like, man, I wasn't being challenged and it was just like trying to not fight with
them, but try to, you know, pick people up.
And then a lot of times that turned into a fight because I've been doing this way for
20 years.
It's like, well, still wrong, but you know, so I was really struggling.
And then, uh, I went to the conference for the first time in Las Vegas and I used my
vacation time.
I have one week vacation that I had, I paid for everything myself, like a lot of people
do.
And I went cause I was like, Hey, you know, nothing else.
I'll get to see Las Vegas.
I've never been.
And it was affordable enough.
And I went and I was absolutely just blown away with all the other instructors in the
same exact situation I was in having the exact same struggles I was having.
And then I learned so much, like the different layers of building science that I didn't know
this was going on and you know, ceiling houses and I thought I had airflow down.
And then I get to meet these people that are going into, you know, all of these other terms
that I didn't really know.
And I had to go back and learn again.
So it lit me on fire.
And I think that was the point that I really came from being, you know, a guy trying to
teach to actually becoming a true educator, because now I was able to really learn and
grow on a whole different level and get to see how different people present ideas that
made it interesting to me.
And I took all this information back and I was literally I was on fire and I've been
going to the conference almost every year since then.
And I love meeting new people that are for the first time you see it in their eyes.
I'm like, I was that guy.
That's like, no, I absolutely you know, that first year, it's difficult.
The transitions are not easy.
You know, I think back about when you mentioned that all the paperwork and the processing
that has to be done in a classroom, things we didn't do much of in the field that's
now required on a daily basis.
There are a lot of skill sets that we have to acquire or fine tune.
And for myself, the only way to do that is to find like minded people.
And that's what I found when I went to the conference as well.
It really was it was my tool to add and sharpen skills that I needed to be successful.
You know, there's so many new tools out, new equipment, new regulations, new ways of doing
stuff.
And then you get other people that are asking you questions and you get to realize you get
to share your experiences.
So as much as I loved all the new technology and things I was learning, it was the connections
that I made that was really special.
People that were all over the country, you know, having these same things, they started
sharing information.
And then throughout the year, you had people you could contact and had people to fall on
it, as well as a wealth of new information.
You had to figure out how to get into the class.
But it was it was just so exciting.
And I really love the conference for that.
I do, too.
So a word of encouragement for everyone that is listening, especially if you are a, you
know, a new educator, that there is a place for you specifically for you to help give
you those resources to get over the hurdles that we all encounter in that first year,
the few years of education.
So we look forward to seeing you all and Ty, I can't wait to hang out with you at the National
HVACR Education Conference.
And thanks for joining us, Ty.
And boy, a lot more things for us to learn and do and share, isn't it?
Oh, thanks.
It's going to be awesome.
All right, everyone, we'll see you again next episode of Did You Know?
The ESCO HVAC Podcast.