1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,000 Welcome to the Windshield Chronicles, a mental sequence of operation. 2 00:00:07,000 --> 00:00:16,000 To learn more about accreditation, HVAC excellence accredited programs, and other resources, visit escogroup.org. 3 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:24,000 Hey Howard, how's it going? 4 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:26,000 Doing great, how are you doing, Clifton? 5 00:00:26,000 --> 00:00:32,000 Doing good, hey I've got an issue that I need a little bit of help with, and you want to go for a ride and talk about this? 6 00:00:32,000 --> 00:00:34,000 Sounds great, looking forward to it. 7 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:35,000 Alright, let's go. 8 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:48,000 Alright, so we're on our way back from the National HVACR Education Conference, and my brain has got something that just needs some help with, and I think you might have some ideas here for me. 9 00:00:48,000 --> 00:01:03,000 Alright, so I spent quite a bit of time as a distributor, a technical service advisor for a distributor of equipment, and we had a lot of local schools that were looking for equipment, and I did a lot of donations of equipment going to the programs. 10 00:01:03,000 --> 00:01:11,000 But one of the things that was brought up at the conference by some of the manufacturers is they would like to do the same thing, but they don't know how to vet schools. 11 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:14,000 Honestly, myself didn't really have a plan for that either. 12 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:24,000 So I know you've got a lot of experience with this, and you've got a lineage of ways to get there that I would call a sequence of operation. 13 00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:33,000 So let's kind of talk about the sequence of operation of vetting schools, and maybe some criteria for, you know, what kind of equipment could go what places. 14 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:35,000 So, I mean, where do we even start? 15 00:01:35,000 --> 00:01:52,000 So, the old story is you as a distributor should have been involved in local program advisory committees. So if you've identified the schools in your area that have HVAC programs, and you've participated, you have a good idea right away of the facilities. 16 00:01:52,000 --> 00:02:00,000 While they're there, look, I can't tell a manufacturer or wholesaler what to do, I could give them some general guidelines of what I would do. 17 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:09,000 Right. One, if I found a good facility, I would probably have a equipment acquisition request form. What is that? 18 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:16,000 We would ask some questions about the school. Is the school a public school for private? 19 00:02:16,000 --> 00:02:17,000 Yeah. 20 00:02:17,000 --> 00:02:25,000 What the hours of the program? Be very similar to what we ask a school on our accreditation application to get a good picture. 21 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:33,000 So I have a one year program, it's publicly funded, I'm eligible for Perkins. So that'd be the first step, have some kind of application. 22 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,000 Okay. All right. Makes sense. Is this the foundation? 23 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:48,000 The second thing I would do, I would take people like yourself, Clifton, and I would say that we would be happy to kind of give a guideline, and I think that's what we're doing here, of what would I want to evaluate that school on. 24 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:55,000 So the very first thing I want to know, how many hours they have, you know, if it's a full time program. 25 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:01,000 Am I a 40 hour, 100 hour, 500 hour, 1000 hour? Yeah, because they're all different, really. 26 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:12,000 And don't get me wrong, there's some great adult ed programs that can do things in a short period of time with the right instructor. But I would look, does the program consist of at least 750 hours? 27 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:13,000 Okay. 28 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:18,000 It's going to take 650 to 750 to teach the basics. I think we can all agree upon that. 29 00:03:18,000 --> 00:03:21,000 Okay, so that's my foundation. First thing I got to look at. 30 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:28,000 I want to know, is this training program at a community college, a technical college, apprenticeship program? 31 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:34,000 I basically want to know, are you recognized by the State Department of Education or Bureau of Apprenticeship? 32 00:03:34,000 --> 00:03:43,000 The reason I bring that up is so you found a school, I want to make certain you didn't find Howard School, I just created a school so I can get discounts from a manufacturer. 33 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:44,000 Yeah, okay. 34 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:53,000 Is this a legitimate organization that's approved by your State Department of Education or Bureau of Apprenticeship for 750 hours? 35 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:54,000 Okay. 36 00:03:54,000 --> 00:04:02,000 Beyond that, I think the second thing I would look at, are they nationally accredited? And I don't mean their school, I mean the program. 37 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:03,000 Just the program itself. 38 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:04,000 Sure. 39 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:11,000 Programmatic accreditation is a third party, non-government peer review to make certain that program met minimal standards. 40 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:12,000 Okay. 41 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:23,000 So if a school is not meeting the minimal standards, that's probably a key indicator that you may want to help them, but you may not be able to give them the big discounts or donations you want. 42 00:04:23,000 --> 00:04:28,000 Yeah. Am I given a combustion analyzer to a school who doesn't even teach gas furnaces? I mean, yeah. 43 00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:34,000 Well, that's a little further on my list too, is the curriculum reflects going down. 44 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:47,000 So I would make certain that your program curriculum reflects not only the equipment that they're looking for, but you should be taking a look, a holistic view to see is this program really covering everything. 45 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:56,000 Look at the curriculum. Look at the, so Clifton, you could have looked in there and said, there's 1200 hours, I see the courses, I see their books, I see their tools, I see their equipment. 46 00:04:56,000 --> 00:05:02,000 This place looks pretty good from that perspective, or you might walk in and say, this place is lacking a lot of things. 47 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:04,000 So you, you should have a quick eye for that. 48 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:15,000 But if I'm specifically asking for assistance, as you mentioned on combustion analyzers, well, do I have curriculum on combustion to teach combustion efficiency? 49 00:05:15,000 --> 00:05:16,000 Yeah. 50 00:05:16,000 --> 00:05:22,000 Do I have, do I have testing? Do I, you know, it's putting the pieces together. 51 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:28,000 Why would someone donate a mini split or sell it at a huge discount to a school if they don't even teach mini splits as part of the curriculum? 52 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:32,000 Absolutely. Or have instructors that are qualified to teach on that. 53 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:43,000 Well, that, that's one of those things that if I was a manufacturer or a wholesaler, if the instructors themselves don't have the training on the specific technology, you have two options. 54 00:05:43,000 --> 00:05:49,000 You could tell them, I'm sorry, you don't qualify. Or here's some of the training we offer and help get them in. 55 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:57,000 But giving equipment that someone, you can't teach what you don't know. So let's help them learn what they need to. 56 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:06,000 But it might also be a great opportunity for someone like yourself to have been a guest presenter and go in and help them reinforce those concepts. 57 00:06:06,000 --> 00:06:15,000 Okay. All right. So we make sure it's a qualified program. Timing wise, we make sure that it is a third party accredited. 58 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:16,000 Right. 59 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:23,000 We just want to take a look at curriculum. We want to take a look at its support network, you know, like advisory board, guest speakers. 60 00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:30,000 What about, you know, I see some schools that have a lot of money wrapped up in equipment and I see some that don't have much wrapped. 61 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:33,000 Is that even something that we can compare? 62 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:37,000 You know, the old story is schools are funded locally. 63 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:45,000 So if we start talking about rural HVAC programs, they're obviously not going to have the resources, some of the big city programs. 64 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:55,000 So there are options. So let's talk here a second. If I'm teaching in a small school in a small town, I still have federal Perkins funds. 65 00:06:55,000 --> 00:07:01,000 There are different opportunities. You have to go to your school administrator, your dean, whoever you report to. 66 00:07:01,000 --> 00:07:07,000 First thing I look at, do we have access to funds under the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Improvement Act? 67 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:13,000 That's an opportunity to use federal funds to acquire equipment, to acquire professional development. 68 00:07:13,000 --> 00:07:20,000 So before I'm even asking for help from my manufacturer partners, my wholesaler partners, that'd be the first thing. 69 00:07:20,000 --> 00:07:24,000 Now we're looking at the size, we're looking at the funding of it. What else are we going to look for after that? 70 00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:32,000 Well, you hit on something here. I would want to know that they have good partners. I want to go to a program advisory committee. 71 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:37,000 I want to see that there's a lot of participation there, diverse participation. 72 00:07:37,000 --> 00:07:46,000 I want to see some of the people who've hired graduates of that school and get an idea. Do they think the school is doing a good job and what's lacking? 73 00:07:46,000 --> 00:07:55,000 Yeah, that's an important part. I mean, if I'm going to be donating a bunch of equipment, how do I even know that it is a successful program? What can we look at there? 74 00:07:55,000 --> 00:08:04,000 Well, there's several things we could look at. Number one, if they're getting Perkins funds, they're supposed to be given these industry recognized third party credentials. 75 00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:11,000 So entry level tests like the employment ready certification. I'd ask to see how are your students doing on these different tests. 76 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:18,000 I would try and talk to some of the employers who have hired students and say, what did you think of the graduates? 77 00:08:18,000 --> 00:08:26,000 You get a good feel right away by finding still story. Ask your neighbors. What refer should I use in my neighborhood? 78 00:08:26,000 --> 00:08:33,000 Well, they're all going to tell you the good and the bad stories. Well, people who have hired from those schools, they know if they if this is a great facility. 79 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:39,000 Or if there's a better one down the street. So what are we looking at? We look at a school and go, OK, so we see that you have decent program. 80 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:43,000 You have all these other things lined up. What kind of graduation rates should we be looking at? 81 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:47,000 Can we compare the graduation rate of a school to see how well they're doing? 82 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:57,000 There's two things I look at. I look at attrition and graduation. They're separate things. OK, when we talk about attrition, let's just say you started with 10 students. 83 00:08:57,000 --> 00:09:08,000 How many actually are completers of that program? Oh, OK, start to finish. So if at the beginning of year we started off at 10 and we wind up with eight, you know, our attrition is 20 percent. 84 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:18,000 Now, out of those eight, how many of those got placed into the field in order for a program to be successful and continue to get state funding? 85 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:22,000 You want to make certain that the attrition rate is 30 percent or less. 86 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:30,000 But I would do that over a couple of year period, like a three year period. Right. Take a look at COVID, different things that happen. Yeah, things can happen. Right. 87 00:09:30,000 --> 00:09:35,000 Everyone has an up year and a down year. So what you're really looking at, you ask them, what is your attrition rate? 88 00:09:35,000 --> 00:09:41,000 If they tell you that their attrition rate is 50 percent, you know, there's a red flag, a big problem there. OK. 89 00:09:41,000 --> 00:09:45,000 Now, I'd like to throw something that's not part of this step process real quickly. 90 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:52,000 Part of the problem is sometimes employers, contractors, they say, why don't you drop out of school? I'll continue your training. 91 00:09:52,000 --> 00:10:05,000 I don't think they realize when they do that, that they're affecting the attrition and placement rates, which which can lead to the program being considered a failed program and defunded by their doing that. 92 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:14,000 So while they're trying to meet their short term goals for employment, they just hurt the school's ability to offer that program the viability of a long term. 93 00:10:14,000 --> 00:10:18,000 Past that, what should we be looking at, like maybe towards the instructors? 94 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:20,000 Are there specifics that we can look at? 95 00:10:20,000 --> 00:10:23,000 The funny part is that we've talked about the school. 96 00:10:23,000 --> 00:10:32,000 You know, you want to make certain you have the program that has enough hours to teach the content, has the right equipment, is nationally aligned to standards. 97 00:10:32,000 --> 00:10:35,000 But buildings don't teach. People do. 98 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:42,000 So I think the two most important things people look at are the instructor qualifications and they're continuing at. 99 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:46,000 I'll break those down into things. So the first order of sequence I want to know. 100 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:54,000 Does this instructor have a minimum, bare minimum of five years of experience in these subject areas being taught? 101 00:10:54,000 --> 00:11:02,000 So if I'm bringing an instructor, I, you know, just because you work at a supply house, driving a truck, delivering parts. 102 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:05,000 Right. Doesn't mean you have years of experience in the field. 103 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:13,000 Right. Right. So we want to make certain that they have years of experience doing exactly what we're teaching. Five years minimum. 104 00:11:13,000 --> 00:11:18,000 You want someone who's also been formally trained in the physics, the theories, 105 00:11:18,000 --> 00:11:23,000 which you're looking for someone who's a graduate of that program or another program in the past, 106 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:31,000 or they're currently working towards their HVAC degree or someone who might hold the title of certified master HVAC educator. 107 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:37,000 What we're really looking for is Clifton, you're in Indiana. If I'm teaching at Ivy Tech, 108 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:46,000 what better place to look than a graduate of the Ivy Tech system for your next instructor, someone who went through it and had that training before. 109 00:11:46,000 --> 00:11:50,000 But I think the last thing I would really look at, and this is probably the most important, 110 00:11:50,000 --> 00:11:58,000 you can have a great school and a great instructor and that instructor may have graduated top in their class 20 years ago. 111 00:11:58,000 --> 00:12:08,000 But if your professional development is lacking. So you and I have seen we have instructors, they take classes on first aid, a variety of things. 112 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:13,000 But none of their professional development seems to be related to what they're teaching. 113 00:12:13,000 --> 00:12:18,000 So if an instructor is not getting at least 10 hours of continuing education a year, 114 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:25,000 I probably want to have them on my list for donating equipment or selling them at some reduced cost. 115 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:34,000 Equally important, I'd say out of those 10 hours, at least half of them should have to be on equipment to stay apprised of new technology. 116 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:44,000 So if you work at a Ford dealership as a mechanic, each year you're required to go to training to learn about the new models. 117 00:12:44,000 --> 00:12:45,000 Yeah, what's changed? 118 00:12:45,000 --> 00:12:47,000 Do we do that in HVAC industry? 119 00:12:47,000 --> 00:12:48,000 Probably not very well. 120 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:58,000 No. So the point is that instructors really need the opportunity to go learn about the new models, new equipment, new technologies, new regulations, new codes. 121 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:08,000 And I think that at least half of their continuing education should be manufacturer specific type of training, learning about the new technologies each year. 122 00:13:08,000 --> 00:13:15,000 Yeah, sounds realistic to me. I mean, that's really sequence of operation. I have 10 different things that I should be looking at. 123 00:13:15,000 --> 00:13:25,000 Is it a full time program? Is it an accredited program? Does it have a current curriculum? Does it have a support network? 124 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:35,000 Does it have administrative funding support? Does it have an attrition rate 30 percent or less? Does it have a graduation rate 80 percent or higher? 125 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:40,000 Does it have program instructors that are qualified for the programs they're teaching, 126 00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:50,000 particularly having subject matter expert certifications on those subjects that are teaching or a master educator for all of the subjects that are being taught? 127 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:58,000 Does it have an active student waiting list? Do we have people wanting to get into the program? And are we doing continuing education hours? 128 00:13:58,000 --> 00:14:01,000 Seems like a pretty successful plan to me. 129 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:07,000 In here, Clifton, the thing is we're all the benefactors are victims of the training we get. 130 00:14:07,000 --> 00:14:16,000 So really this conversation, we started talking about sequence of operation of how do I identify a quality program to partner with, 131 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:22,000 whether that partner means I'm trying to donate equipment, sell it at a discount, help educate their instructors. 132 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:32,000 When we're building partnerships to build our brands as manufacturers or wholesalers, what we're really looking for is a partner that's capable of executing our vision. 133 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:39,000 So I know that you had gone through some specific dealer training. You are a Dyken Field Service rep. 134 00:14:39,000 --> 00:14:46,000 You should have the ability of going out and taking a look at a school and determining based on the things we've discussed. 135 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:52,000 Is this a place I really want to partner with? If so, what does that partnership mean? Am I a presenter? 136 00:14:52,000 --> 00:15:00,000 Can I sell them at some kind of substantial discount because it's going to help me build my brand? Can I donate in certain cases? 137 00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:06,000 That's going to be up to each and every manufacturer. But I think the problem is the question came up. 138 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:14,000 How do I identify the quality schools from the bad ones? Because just looking at the names of the schools isn't enough. You have to physically go visit. 139 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:19,000 Exactly. What is the difference between A and Z and everyone in between? 140 00:15:19,000 --> 00:15:33,000 So these are a sequence of 10 different items that should be looked at when deciding if a program is qualified for a certain type of equipment or even sponsorship. 141 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:34,000 Right. 142 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:50,000 OK. All right. Thank you, Howard. We appreciate your time. And yeah, that's a good conversation. Cool. We'll see you later. 143 00:16:04,000 --> 00:16:07,000 Yeah.