Soften your senses, ways to become a better speaker, listener and follower.
This session was recorded live at the 2023 National HVACR Education Conference.
Learn more about the UA at ua.org.
Well thank you all for joining us today.
We're going to hang out with Brian Kelly from the UA.
And man, Brian, what a topic.
How do you prepare to be a new person in the industry?
To prepare a new person in the industry, I mean you just have a willingness to want to
work with your hands, to want to learn each and every day.
I mean that's the key.
In HVACR, you are learning every day and if you're not, you won't survive.
You know I think back about my days when I got into the trade.
You know I started out in a small family, ran business, we did refrigeration, we did
HVAC.
But that person mentoring me along the way taught me a lot about the soft skills about
being a person, about actually showing up for work and having a positive attitude.
So how does that play just in work ethic alone?
Because I know that this is something that you could probably spend a lot of time educating
on.
Yeah, I mean so work ethic, for me personally, I think that is something that's integral
to a person.
I mean I think people are naturally born with that.
And the whole key to this whole industry, I mean you can start with no prior experience.
If you have the ability to show up on time, you show up with a good attitude, you hustle,
you don't have to know anything.
But if you're given a task by say somebody that's mentoring you, do that task like it's,
you know if he's asked you to sweep the floor, make it the cleanest floor on the planet.
I mean if you have that within you, everything else is teachable.
Yeah, I get that question all the time from friends, educators, contractors.
How do you teach somebody to want to clean the van out?
Oh man, if I knew the answer to that, I wouldn't be sitting here with you.
But the truth of the matter is when you're organized, you're a much better technician
because you can find things, you can do things more efficiently, and you do a better job
for the customer.
Yeah, absolutely.
So I think back about those early days of getting into the trade and what things would
I want someone to tell me about the trades and how to prepare myself for working in the
trades.
You know one, that's right, you have to mentally want to learn.
You have to enjoy working with your hands.
And that's a little bit different of a trait in today's generation that was like when you
and I were growing up.
You know when you and I were growing up, it was kind of expected that you worked on your
own bike.
It was kind of expected that you, you know, broke things and maybe tried fixing things.
And that's somewhat changed as we've moved into a disposable industry.
But in our world in HVAC refrigeration, it's not so the case.
We're still here to fix things and learning how to use your hands if you don't already
use your hands.
So like say I'm a young technician coming into the trade and I'm looking at HVAC refrigeration
classes, you know, what should be my expectations of using my hands to work?
Yeah, well using your hands to work and using tools, that doesn't mean your iPhone, right?
On occasion it is there to help and you know with technology the iPhone and how-to videos
are certainly helpful.
But before you get to that point, you know, you need to know the basics.
I mean you need to know the basics, how to use regular hand tools.
And again, I still go back to, you know, a clear mind showing up with a good attitude
and all that.
Anything can be taught.
But certainly, you know, like you mentioned earlier, the kids today aren't using tools.
They're not working on their own bikes.
They're not working on cars.
Everything is automated.
So it does present a new set of challenges for today.
Yeah, that's what I get from a lot of our educators is how do we work with our younger
generations to encourage them to want to work?
Because this industry is a very physical industry.
There's a lot of using your hands.
There's a lot of carrying weight tools and maneuvering ladders.
And so there's a physical component to it that may not always be as well received.
But I think we were all that way.
I mean, let's think about when we got into the trades.
I don't know that I was ever excited to crawl into a crawl space.
But sharp mind and sharp body will get you in a get, you know, bring you a long way in
life, I'll tell you.
And you know, something else, especially for young people coming into the trade, it's very
important to understand that, you know, you know, guys like us that have that have been
worked their whole careers in the trade, we can look back and say, man, what a wonderful
trade.
And I still this is one I'd probably say this is the best trade on the planet.
Not every experience is going to be positive.
And one thing that you really need to remember is even bad experiences are learning experiences.
And as long as you as long as you continue to learn each and every day, that's where
you're going to find your success.
Exactly.
And this industry is the the epitome of daily learning.
That's what kept me in this industry.
When I got into HVAC, I didn't know that I was going to stay here for a career.
You know, it was a good paying job.
It was a family business that I had married into.
And it just it was it was a job like many jobs.
And then 20 some years later, I'm still experiencing new opportunities, new ways to push my own
personal limits.
So when we talk about preparing students to work with their hands and being in a physical
environment, I think it's very important that we help them understand that they're now able
to learn a craft and this is absolutely a craft where you can create and fix and repair
and do things with your hands that many people will never have the opportunity to do in their
life.
Sure.
And not only that, not only can you fix, install, fix heating and air conditioning, but, you
know, for an HVAC tech, everybody, anyone that's listening to this knows fully well,
you can't be an accomplished HVAC technician unless you know electrical, unless you know
plumbing.
I mean, it's the combination of a whole bunch of trades wrapped in.
And I'll tell you, you know, it has pros and cons when you own your own house, you can
do everything, everything on your own.
But you know, when you get home from work, you're not necessarily going to do that.
Kind of goes back to the old notage of, you know, the the mechanic that drives the beater
when he comes home because he fixes them all day.
He doesn't want to fix his own.
That can sometimes happen.
So true, so true.
But it is a very, very stable career.
You know, it's a job where you learn skills and, you know, maybe with our younger generation,
they haven't had the opportunity to learn that value in self-diagnostics and self-repair.
The gratification that comes from taking something that is broken, broken and turning it into
something that is almost a new creation.
And so being able to take a project, evaluate a project and dive into it.
And I know it can be very intimidating to, you know, try to learn new skills that you
may not have been associated to growing up because it has changed.
The industry has changed so much.
We don't have the things to work on that we used to as young kids, you know, tear into
and fix and play with.
And so much of it is electronic and disposable.
But in the evolution of work, when we get into the field, we have all of these things
to now learn and experience.
And it adds so much character and dynamic to your life.
I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with young students.
You know, they're learning HVAC and refrigeration and they come back and go, you know what I
did this weekend?
I tore the brakes off of my car.
Yeah, you know, and it's so true.
And once you have the once you get that, you know, that that initial itch, once you get
the vibe to to really start diving in and you have, you know, you have to do it at work.
And that gives you the, you know, the the confidence, if you will, to to tackle anything
because, you know, let's face it, HVAC technicians, primarily or a high percentage of the time
are working by themselves.
And if you can't fix it, it's not getting fixed.
So exactly right.
You know, so it does build as especially as you grow in your career, you build that self-confidence
that pride that man, there's nothing that I can't fix.
You know, when you're teaching classes and you're teaching students, it's always neat
to see that development like that spark because you see that spark when they finally they
work on something and they turn around and they go, I did that.
I made this happen.
I figured this out.
And it just continues to grow.
You know, I get a lot of times people go, man, how do you learn to work on it?
Well, it was broken.
So I was taught that if it's broken, you attempt to fix it.
Yeah, man, that was probably the most satisfying time of my career when I was when I was an
instructor.
I taught HVAC for five years.
And in you know, when you when you see somebody sitting in your classroom and and all of a
sudden you see that light bulb goes off.
I mean, man, driving home, that's the best feeling in the whole entire world.
And you know, one of the other things to understand, too, especially as a as a former instructor,
you know, when you not every student learns the same way.
So when as an educator, if you have if you can put it into different words or maybe,
you know, explain it in a couple of different ways, the same same approach to to to a solution
in a different picture.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's I think that's really the key to being a really it take, you know, from
an average instructor to a great instructor is being able to reach more of your audience.
Yeah, absolutely.
That's one thing that I've had the ability to learn so much in the last few years by
talking to other educators and listening to people who have had these experiences in life
is that many times we'll get stuck in a rut where we're teaching the same way.
And the outcome is changing.
So is is it in the students or is it in our own delivery?
I tend to think it's in the delivery.
I do as well, you know, because, like I said, if you can take if you can explain the same
the same solution to a problem in a in a couple or a few different ways, you know, you'll
you'll look around the room and you you tend as you, you know, as you've been doing this
for a little while, you know, you can see those light bulbs going off and it's really
it's satisfying.
Yeah, I had a conversation with another colleague here recently about the the way that our content
is being received is different than it was a generation ago and a generation before that.
So I've done a lot of time studying, you know, the the way that we interpret and receive
content.
And if we look at our society, our society has changed and our delivery methods have
changed.
So if we continue to teach with the same the same platform that we've always used and we
start seeing that our class is not participating as much and that our grades are diminishing,
it's time to start looking for new avenues for instructional delivery.
And that's what we we've done a lot in the last few years is looked at new ways to deliver
content because HVAC refrigeration and electrical plumbing.
I mean, these concepts, yeah, we have an evolution of them, but the fundamentals are never really
going to change.
That's we look at like refrigeration.
Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more.
And in fact, you know, certainly what I found in my experience is, you know, the lion's
share of people that that that choose to come into a trade for one reason or another, but
probably the most most often heard reason I've heard is because they just didn't want
to go to college.
They were just they didn't want to sit in a classroom.
So most of our folks, let's face it, they learn better by doing so hands on the hands
on when you incorporate hands on into into theory or you you know, you you know, you
just punctuate it with a little hands on and showing them exactly what that theory is all
about.
You know, real time.
That's where that's where you really get the results.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
All right.
Good stuff, Brian.
I really appreciate you joining us today.
And let's go pick another topic to talk about.
Sure.
Anytime.
Come back soon.
OK.