February 8th, 2008 by admin
You won’t believe what I was standing in yesterday! I actually walked through an ice tank that holds 1.1 million gallons of water (yes that’s million). A team of us walked right through the tank on a catwalk during a tour of Northwind Phoenix, but let me start at the beginning.
Northwind Phoenix is a plant that basically makes ice. So what, you say? Ice is no big thing. You do it in your freezer every day, right? Wrong! This plant makes lots and lots of ice. About 3 – 5 million pounds of ice per night during peak seasons. No, not the kind of ice for drinks (that would be a lot of drinks!). This ice is used to cool the Chase Ballpark and 25 other buildings in the downtown area. This process is critical to keeping the energy usage and costs down for cooling something so large with over 48,000 people in it.
For those who haven’t heard or experienced it, Phoenix gets hot. Really, really, hot. Temperatures have been known to reach over 120° in the worst of the summer. This is when baseball is in its prime and people are flocking to the stadiums to see the Arizona Diamondbacks. Would any of those people be willing to come if the temperatures inside of the ballpark were over 120°? Even 100° or 90° would be pretty uncomfortable and people would likely stay at home and watch it from their cool houses. Not only that, but high heat exposure can cause medical problems and dehydration. The players wouldn’t even be willing to play in those conditions. Cooling is critical.
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January 29th, 2008 by admin
Well, it certainly is a new year, filled with new and exciting things. RSI has been abuzz with the anticipation of changing over to a bright new shiny database. This is where all of the information about our students and graduates is kept so that we can help them have the best educational and employment seeking experience possible.
I can hear your thoughts now, “so what’s that got to do with me going school?”. Plenty! RSI has spent over 43 years providing quality education training and producing thousands of certified HVAC/R technicians. The service we give our students has always been the main goal. This begins when someone makes an initial contact for information and never really ends for our graduates. We have taken it on as a lifetime commitment. Graduates from 20 or 30 years back have been known to call us frequently, many of them to hire new graduates to fill positions in their own companies.
When RSI makes steps to upgrade our technology, it is with the students, graduates, and employers in mind. Recently RSI Owner and President Liz Cline exclaimed, “this new system is top of the line and will take on a lot of the manual work we are doing, so that we can spend more time helping our students.” That attitude permeates from the top down. Every department has the students and graduates as their primary concern.
I often wonder how many colleges and universities can say that? We have a saying around here that goes, “we succeed when our graduates succeed”. That might sound a little cliché, but if you think about it, it makes sense. In order for our reputation to be what it is, we have to produce graduates that know what they are doing in the industry. They need to have enough knowledge that the employers are confident they can take as little time as possible training them so they can put them out on their own. If we didn’t do that, our graduates wouldn’t get hired. We also have a very high referral rate which is also evidence of our quality service. Even our motto is “RSI Trains You for Success”!
Everything we do is with the student in mind, from new technology to faculty training. The staff and faculty work hard to make sure the students and graduates have the best resources to be a success in the career they have chosen.
January 9th, 2008 by admin
There is something about a new year that makes everyone look for change. Maybe it’s because everyone is so busy during the year doing what they do, and they don’t take the time to stop until the end of the year. That’s when they realize, “Hey! I need something different.” What happens then? It gets busy again and things go on the same as they were the year before.
It’s only when we finally get determined and actually make the change, then things really happen. This is what makes going to RSI really cool. When you decide it’s time, we have a class starting within a few weeks. We have experienced staff on hand to discuss the career, financial aid options, training, and the programs RSI offers. Most people can start toward their new career within a month or so of their initial contact.
That’s not the half of it. How many things can you do to make a huge change, like a new career, that can happen within a year? In as little as 6 months you can be out the door and on your way to creating the life you want. RSI doesn’t leave it at just that though. Our Career Development Department is there after you graduate to help you find that job you are looking for. We have over 43 years of experience training technicians and helping them enter the industry with great companies, big and small.
It’s up to you now. We are here, waiting to take you on a tour. The career is restlessly waiting with a huge shortage of technicians. Whatever your dreams happen to be are waiting for you to make the change. It just takes you.
December 13th, 2007 by admin
Sometimes it really is a small world out there. Jon Cline our Industry Relations Director and Phil Finklea our Faculty Supervisor were just at the Home Depot a few hours ago purchasing some equipment. When the young woman checking them out looked at the credit card Jon gave her, she asked if they were from RSI. When Jon replied that they were she informed him that her brother attended RSI. Jon asked what he’s doing and she said that he got a job right out of school but she hardly sees him because he works all the time. Jon asked how he was doing and she said that he bought a house right after he got out of school so he must be doing well.
There are many stories out there just like that one. Our faculty and staff members often encounter people that graduated from RSI, or someone that knows someone that graduated from RSI. This speaks to the over 42 years RSI has served the area by producing great technicians, but there is more to it than that. There are many people out there that understand the need for HVAC/R technicians and have taken advantage of the demand. They have seen first-hand the opportunities available to them and their families through generous pay scales and benefits.
I spoke with Paul Kelly, owner of Parker & Sons Air Conditioning, a major service company in the Phoenix area, and he put it very succinctly that, “No matter what happens in the economy people are still going to want air conditioning.” When you think about it, it’s the basics of supply and demand. So long as the demand is there and there is some scarcity of supply, people will pay more for what they want and what they consider a need.
Nothing rings more true than what we see in the HVAC/R industry. There are articles constantly about the shortage of trained technicians. At RSI we had over 1,000 job orders from January – September of this year. We graduate roughly 300 – 400 students per year. This means there are a significant amount of job orders that we couldn’t fill with new graduates. That is just the job orders we received. Think about how this trend is reflected nationwide. It’s mind boggling.
This shortage comes from expansion in major cities for residential and commercial properties. What people often don’t realize is that there is a domino effect to expansion. It doesn’t just mean that more houses and offices are built. It means there are more hospitals and medical centers to take care of people, there are more grocery stores and shopping malls, more restaurants, more car dealerships, more schools, more entertainment areas, and so on. All of this growth means more technicians are needed to service the climate control and refrigeration equipment that have become a necessary part of our everyday lives.
Even better is the fact that this need won’t go away. We as a society are not likely to wake up one day and decide that we don’t need air conditioning any more, or that we can go back to using ice boxes instead of refrigerators. The trend is that we will continue to rely more and more on this type of equipment as time goes on. Not only this, but as our world becomes more aware of the damage we are doing to the earth, the need for increased eco-friendly equipment will continue to be an issue. Old equipment will need to be updated and in many cases will be required by state or federal regulations. This means continued opportunity for the HVAC/R technician and an in-demand career for anyone that wants it.
December 5th, 2007 by admin
Last week I had the opportunity to meet with one of our graduates. He just got back from a contract job in Beijing China. China!! He was working on the new U.S. Embassy building there. The contractor he was working with was installing the climate control and electrical for this building. The building itself is over 600,000 square feet. It’s HUGE!
The more I think about this industry, the more it amazes me at the directions it can take people. What was really cool about this guy is that he is only 22 years old. He has the rest of his life in front of him and he has already worked in China for a year. What’s next for him? What’s next for all of our graduates?
Our Career Development Director was just telling me today that based on conversations he has had with the industry and the shortage of technicians, there doesn’t seem to be a stopping point. How many careers can boast 6 months to entry and limitless opportunities? Just the fact alone that we had over 1000 job orders between January and September of this year, should make everyone stop and think.What could you do? Where could you go?
