It is a small world….
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.
