All right, everyone. Thank you for joining us
on Did You Know? The ESCO HVAC Podcast. So we
are spending some time with Jamie Quanrud from...
Residio, how are you doing? Thank you so much for
the time today. I'm doing great. How are you?
I'm starting to wear down, to be honest with
you. It has been an exciting conference. And
a busy one at that. We have been trying to elevate
education in the industry. And so we have so
many schools that are now looking at our industry
going, okay, a lot of things are changing. Technologies
are changing. Refrigerants are changing. So we
got to step up our game. And to do that, we're
going to need to find the right right resources
to elevate our education. We need the resources
to make sure that our contractors that we're
supplying technicians to are having the resources
available to them. And so Part of what we do,
Howard Weiss always likes to say that we're kind
of like this dating service in the industry.
We're like the HVAC professional dating service,
trying to connect everyone with what they need.
And so in that, we all benefit out of that. So
let's talk about ways that Resideo is actually
doing exactly that, working with education in
our industry. Yeah, you couldn't have set this
up better. Thank you for that. I promise for
those of you listening. Did not pay him to say
those words. That's fantastic. So I've been in
the industry for 15 years in training the entire
time. And so love what I get to call a job. Isn't
it crazy? It is. Somebody pays us to do this.
I can't believe it. It is fantastic. And one
of my favorite things is helping to empower what
we call the next generation of the pro. It is.
So I lead what we call Resideo Academy, which
is a technical training offering from Resideo.
So we go to market with Honeywell. home and first
alert branded products you probably know that
we're a manufacturer of the thermostats the zoning
equipment the things that are probably in your
house and we learned a couple of years ago This
was probably pre -COVID. We were facing as an
industry the potential for a shortage in talent.
Massive shortage. Yes, and that was before COVID.
And we have now seen the ramifications of that.
So as a manufacturer, we really kind of took
that to heart and said, how can we give back?
What is our responsibility to help partner with...
folks like you at esco but also at the college
level and at the professional contractor level
how do we help and do our part so i live in minneapolis
um it was 30 degrees and you know nice and snowy
earlier this week so vegas is a fantastic change
of pace yes it is and we have a we have a college
uh in town that we partner with a couple of years
ago i walk in with some co -workers and we're
gonna do a tour. We're going to site visit their
lab space. Where you at? Yeah. And I had an out
of body experience. Never had one before, but
we're kind of walking around. We're looking at
all the equipment. I'm jealous of what they've
got. And I look at the wall of all the thermostats
that these students are using and the newest
and most of it's Honeywell branded. Fantastic.
Great. They're using our stuff. There's some
mercury in there. It was great. But I'm looking
at this wall and I'm having this out of body
experience going, the newest thermostat on that
wall is 25 years old. Exactly. And we, as Resideo,
just released a new Honeywell Home thermostat
that needed to be commissioned using a smartphone.
Absolutely. And I kind of had this experience
and said to myself, wait a second. how do we
as a manufacturer help colleges get the latest
technology not make it cost prohibitive to them
yeah but how do we also not break the bank ourselves
yeah so what do we do so we have a couple of
different industry partnerships we work closely
with a few organizations um but over the last
year year and a half we have um been doing some
voice of the instructor so we came to to this
conference last year for the first time. We didn't
know what we were in for. Yeah, most people don't.
I didn't. We were super excited, but we kind
of went, we don't know what's going to happen.
So we brought one of our zoning equipment cases
that our trainers go out into the field and use.
And we did some very informal, hey, as an instructor
at your college, would this equipment work? How
do you teach? How do you teach smart thermostats?
How do you teach electricity? How do you teach
Ohm's Law? All of those things. A lot of the
conversations that we had last year... went into
what we built over the last year, which is what
we're calling an HVAC learning kit. Later this
year, or excuse me, later this week, available
for purchase from Resideo through distribution
will be an HVAC learning kit. We got our hands
-on ESCO HVAC excellence curriculum, along with
NCCER curriculum from an HVAC perspective. We
wanted to understand what was being taught and
when. And we then essentially went back into
our lab and said, what products of ours reinforce
those concepts in class. And how do we as a manufacturer
reflect that? So what you'll see on the graphic
that's on this kit, I encourage you to come by
our booth. Please come by our booth. It's 40
by 31. It is a fully encapsulated and functioning
system inside of a house. So you can zone up
to four zones. There's two thermostats. There's
working zone dampers. There's lights to indicate
indoor air quality equipment. installed correctly
but the thing about this is we've partnered with
a couple of colleges we've made donations however
there are 50 states in the union i'm not great
at math we have there's a lot lacking yes we
have nine we have 12 colleges in nine states
there's a small delta between 9 and 50. It's
a leap. And I said to our leadership team, I
want us to come next year and say that we have
a college in every state that has either purchased
or had donated to them one of these, at least
one of these boards. Because what comes with
this are instructor guides. and student lab activities
we want to make a way so that the next generation
who is in these incredible programs already learning
about what they need to know but they're getting
the latest information from us as a manufacturer
and when they join the industry their future
employer doesn't have to spend six months retraining
yes yeah they're ready to go they've already
got it yes and they as they should i mean we
look at these technologies and even if our instructor
hasn't worked with these technologies we get
it right many of us come out of the field we
go into training we teach what we know hopefully
we're doing continuing education hopefully we're
here learning about these products but then trying
to teach that is a little bit different right
and so having pre -made curriculum and content
that's like the bread and butter yeah you know
that if if i can have something that i can bring
into my classroom ready to go with curriculum
and i can take a little bit of time and get to
know it well myself then i can go out in a classroom
and i look great right i have partnered with
a manufacturer on curriculum for state -of -the
-art technologies that you're going to encounter
when you go in the field and by the way those
phones that we're not supposed to use in class
break them out i'm gonna i'm gonna show you what
we actually do what our industry does with phones
and how we communicate by the way you're actually
going to get a talk yeah but you're going to
be talking to a piece of equipment and you're
going to interact and you can sit there and get
it done in a short amount of time or you can
spend a few hours getting to know all of the
internal functions like playing a game and you
want to go in and you want to learn every aspect
and every submenu. We're actually going to let
you do that in here for fun. And think about
it. We're giving you real -time practice to what
your actual future customer is going to be interested
in. They're going to want this stuff in their
own homes. So why don't you practice on that
equipment while you're in class learning? Yeah.
Go home. Go, hey, mom, dad, guess what I learned
today? Look what I learned. That new thermostat
you've been looking at? Let me show you something
even better that I just finished learning in
class. Yeah. And I'll show you how it actually
operates. Yeah. The other investment we're getting
ready to make in our industry is we're getting
ready to launch a badging program. Digital badging?
Yeah, digital badging. Have you talked to Renee
yet? We're going to have to talk. Oh, my gosh.
I can't wait. Like everything you're saying,
I'm like, HVACR Learning Network, digital badging.
Yeah, one of the things we want to make available
to our college partner schools is we want those
for free. Yeah. Earn that digital badge and say,
you know what, I'm a specialist in these industry
standards, and this is what I know. Yeah. So
I have been learning this. This was slightly
new for me. It was a perspective I hadn't thought
about. But I spend a lot of time studying generations.
You know, how to effectively communicate to different
generations. And Gen Z and Alpha have been my
primary targets recently. Fascinating. It really
is fascinating. And I was sitting in with one
of our most successful contracting companies
in the United States that has a near zero technician
shortage, right? Okay. They don't search for
technicians. Technicians come to them. Okay.
Where are they located? So it's a larger, it's
a commercial service company. Okay. And so it
was talking about how does that strategy work?
Like what is the success of that? And I said,
well, it really is one thing. We build a resume
for every technician so that they can see their
progression and they can see a path of success
because in particularly Z, alphas. That alpha
is a whole other animal. But Gen Z in particular,
they see success as like a potential thing they
can do. They want to know how to get there. And
if you don't give them the pass and show them
things to be successful, you're really going
to struggle retaining them, right? And so when
we can do that and we can actually start showing
these paths and... giving digital recognitions
right like what's social media about it's about
recognition for things that i've accomplished
yeah let them show off what they know yes how
cool is that right and so now we're actually
doing education yeah that has something i can
show for it that i can layer on top of my other
digital badges and recognition certifications.
And think about that as you join the industry,
you get your first job and your future employer
already knows what you know. Yeah, exactly. You
know, there was a time in our industry where,
so when I was teaching contractors, right? So
I was, maybe if I was doing a onboarding for
a new contractor and the contractor wanted me
to do classes, like I need to know what kind
of talent you have yeah right so i'm going to
give you an assessment test for every one of
your technicians and the question was why do
we do that i was like okay so for generations
residential contractors have relied on years
of experience as the qualification for their
value yeah how do you know that you have two
technicians that have 15 years experience Do
you know if one technician has had 15 years of
the same bad habits they learned in the first
year or 15 years of continual growth, a lot of
times we would get certificates of completion
for taking a course. And then what happened with
them? Nobody else looked at them. Mom put them
in a frame. Maybe. Maybe, or they ended up in
a folder. Gone. First move, their history. So
when we start implementing digital badging for
completions of courses, and now you have something
that, exactly directly on to your next job the
rest of your career these are things that you
have achieved and it's absolutely brilliant i'm
thinking and we should be we should be celebrating
that absolutely and i'm a i'm a contractor and
i'm looking for a technician right i know what
i'm going to be selling okay this is my product
lineup and by the way uh all of this generation
of equipment is going to be getting this type
of a thermostat and I wouldn't mind if you all
knew what you're doing with these things. Well,
what if you have someone coming right out of
school going, oh, by the way, I just finished
those and I got a certificate and a digital badge
showing that I completed this course. And as
a homeowner, what peace of mind are you providing
to say, yep, look at what I earned along the
way. I see digital badging being like a staple
of our industry going forward. We're very excited.
yeah i mean it's like that whole portfolio like
what do you know you know we're in an age of
the easy button as a consumer if there's an easy
button for who's coming to work on my system
like we're already using these kind of tools
like most of our professional uh business software
is using tools that shows you the technician
that's coming to see you, maybe a little bit
of biography. But what if you've seen that person
and you've seen everything that they were already
qualified to go? They're coming to install a
residual thermostat at my house and they've already
been trained and certified on that. Great. Thank
you for sending the right person. Fabulous. I
have confidence. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Yeah, you
got my attention. I got to go check this thing
out. Can't wait to see you at the booth. And
if anybody listening wants to know more information,
you have to know where to go. Please contact
me or find the information on our website. Okay.
Within a matter of days, that will be available
for purchase. We are so excited. And this is
just the first round and the first generation
from us. We are here to stay. We are investing
in this industry and we are excited about empowering
the next generation of the professional. I am
too. These are the kind of partnerships we like.
find. Companies that are just looking at the
industry going, you know what? We all have a
lot to learn. We are all going to get there,
but we all have things that we're going to assist
the industry in moving forward. And this is a
tool for assisting that. And we have to do our
part. As a manufacturer, we need to do our part
to make sure that the students and the instructors
have the right information. So here's how we're
going to do that. Yeah. In an age of An age of
misinformation that is about as available as
correct information, it's easy to get the wrong
stuff. And so that's why I always encourage people,
go firsthand. That firsthand information, who
created, engineered, manufactured these things,
that's where your correct information is at.
And yeah, this is going to be really good. Well,
thank you so much for the time today. Thank you.
Jamie, where do people go to learn more about
this? So if you want to learn more about training,
go to academy .residio .com for more information.
Simple as that. Thank you so much. Appreciate
you. Appreciate the time.