Contractor, Air Tech, and wholesaler, Auer Steel, work together with a Wisconsin high school to train future crews.

With veteran PHCPPros retiring and fewer young workers beginning careers in the plumbing and heating industry, contractors have long felt the squeeze of a growing labor shortage.

Finding their next hires is on every contractor’s mind we meet. Plenty have shared tales of turning down business; facing longer timelines on construction and renovation projects; contending with existing employees who face heavier workloads, increasing the risk of burnout and job dissatisfaction; or having to tell even faithful, longtime customers that they may have to wait longer for even a basic service call. And all because there simply aren’t enough workers to do the work.

But like all challenges, an opportunity hides right behind for stronger collaboration with contractors and wholesalers and their outlying community to play a pivotal role in attracting, developing and retaining the next generation of plumbing and heating professionals.

Take a look at what’s been going on with Air Tech Heating Inc., Fond du Lac, Wisconsin with another location in Ripon, and its long-time wholesaler, Auer Steel & Heating Supply Co. Inc., which serves the contractor community in Wisconsin; Minnesota; eastern North Dakota; and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula from its homebase in Milwaukee.

For the past seven years, owner Jim Price has been working with the ACE Academy, a comprehensive trade skills program located at Fond du Lac High School. ACE stands for “architecture, construction and engineering” and represents the variety of careers available to students.

The Air Tech crew regularly shares its expertise with the ACE students during HVAC classwork. Price has also nurtured several students at his shop on a work/study program and currently has three former students on his payroll as full-time employees. Plus, he’s working with two more about to graduate with plans to hire both.

“Anyone who says they can’t find anybody to hire,” Price says, “may want to spend the time to help these kids grow.”

Recently, Air Tech installed two furnaces at ACE, donated by Auer, to further add on to the HVAC curriculum at the academy. Meanwhile, Auer runs a training facility near its headquarters that primarily serves existing techs, but also offers a number of one-day HVAC workshops for area high schools throughout the year.

Let’s take a further look at what this contractor and wholesaler are doing to confront the labor shortage.

But keep in mind this is just one example we’re highlighting. Price told us that he taps into other area high schools and trade schools for talent, including his alma mater North Fond du Lac High School, which has an excellent construction trades program, too. When we later joined Price at Auer’s Introduction to HVAC Workshop, students from Fond du Lac High School and two other area high schools were in attendance. Finally, there are nine other ACE Academies throughout Wisconsin and undoubtedly many other like-minded educational facilities in our other 49 states.

Air Tech

To say Air Tech is growing is an understatement. Price shared with us that between 2019 and 2024, his revenue increased by a 162%.

“A lot of companies reach a point where it does get harder to grow,” Price adds. “That was us in 2019 and we had gotten into a rut. But we started figuring things out better from there. And we definitely got out of that rut.”

 In part, Price credits Auer with introducing the company to the benefits of BDR, a business training coaching service for home service contractors.

 Actually, it was Price’s father, Dan Price, who attended an introductory class and came back ready to charge ahead with BDR.

 “My dad is the hardest working person I’ve ever met in my life,” Price adds.

 Dan started the business in 1997 after gaining experience working for other local HVAC companies.

 “I’ve always thought it was great that when my dad opened Air Tech some of his former co-workers decided to come work for him,” Jim adds.

 Jim actually grew up at that shop and by 9 was sweeping up the place and making slips and drives. “There’s never enough slips and drives,” Jim says, which at the time were generally made by hand before machinery took over the task.

After Jim graduated from high school, he took two days off and started working for his father full-time.

Over the years, Air Tech’s NATE-certified techs have made the business the go-to HVAC contractor in the Fox Valley. Winner of the Gannett Reader’s Choice of Best Heating/Airconditioning Company? Yes, in fact, 15 times. Perennial members of the Bryant Circle of Champions as well as winners of the Bryant Medal of Excellence? Check and check.

And then in 2019, Air Tech was selected as Bryant Dealer of the Year, the highest honor a Bryant dealer can receive. Each year, this award recognizes the company whose hard work, expertise and business acumen have helped them to stand out as a leader in the industry.

“No. 1 out of 3,000 dealers in the country,” Price adds. “So that was a big deal for us.”

It was a fitting capstone to Dan’s work, who retired shortly after the big win.

Jim and his wife Sarah became co-owners of the company a year before the big win and while Dan is “retired,” we got the idea during our visit that Dan retires like a lot of plumbing and heating business owners we’ve met. Officially, Dan is still the president of Air Tech, with Jim the vice president and Sarah the general manager.

Currently, Air Tech employs 45 people, with 30 in the field. The company does strictly HVAC with 60% of the work in commercial and 40% in residential. The company, however, does take the “H” literally and inside the company training room techs are also trained to do other forms of heating, including geothermal; heat pumps and split ducts.

“During peak cooling season, we can gain five new customers a day because they called their regular contractor who couldn’t do the work. Many times they just tell the customer to call us,” Price adds.

Asked about this somewhat unorthodox “referral program,” Price doesn’t have any easy answers.

“Many contractors are happy with what they have,” he explains. “They have just who they want working in the field and may not want to train. Some just want to do install and not do service. But all that also means that a lot of owners themselves may still be in the field and some might be working 80 hours a week.”

You know who else worked 80 hours a week? His dad when he first started running Air Tech.

“I want the people who work here to have a fantastic job, take vacation and be able to go home at night and see their families,” Price explains. “So we work from 7 to 3. We have a tech on call on the weekends and we’ll adjust that schedule during peak season and again during off peak. Of course, when there’s more work and anyone wants to work extra hours, they’re more than welcome to.”

ACE Academy

Following our meeting at Air Tech’s office, we drove over to the ACE Academy to better understand how Price works with the school’s instructors and students.

The school-within-a-school transformed the Fond du Lac High School’s construction program from an add-on program taught in a regular classroom to a flagship operation housed in a 5,750-square-foot, free-standing addition alongside the school.

“The new building was a real game-changer for us,” says Vern Widmer, ACE Academy instructor. “Certainly it’s a huge space, but the local contractor community really came together not only to raise money and make other donations of equipment and building materials to open the academy, but also make a tremendous commitment to come into classes regularly and share their knowledge.”

Currently, Widmer says 48 companies spend more than 1,000 hours at ACE during the school year, actively involved in curriculum development and hands-on instruction.

“Their technical expertise and presence in the classroom allows the students to use cutting-edge equipment and learn directly from people in the field,” Widmer adds. (For more on ACE Academy, see our sidebar.)

One of those contractors, of course, is Air Tech.

While at ACE, we saw the furnaces that Air Tech recently installed, and Price told us about his overall commitment to helping share his knowledge with the students.

“We regularly spend three days there to explain HVAC principles,” Price explains. “My commercial manager does most of it now. He’s very, very smart. And his wife’s a teacher so he’s very good at going in there with Jon and setting everything up.”

That would be Jon Hirsch, director of business development at Auer Steel, who regularly visits high schools and trade school in the distributor’s trading area to promote careers in the trades, which goes over and above the academic work done at ACE.

For the 2024-2025 school year, Hirsch gave us his rundown of visits:

• 69 high schools and colleges visited for various career events.
• 49 different high schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin presenting hands-on HVAC activities.
• 7,837 kids reached.
• Plus, Auer hosted seven full-day HVAC workshops at its Wisconsin and Minnesota training centers for high school students (more on a recent example of that below).

“Jon’s involved in the good stuff like getting kids to realize the great potential a career in the skilled trades represents,” Price adds.

The furnaces donated by Auer and installed by Air Tech will help open up a whole new HVAC learning experience for the students.

“We used to bring in a trailer that had a furnace and an air conditioner on it,” Price explains. “And then we would also organize a class trip to our own training facility where they could also understand geothermal; heat pumps and split systems.”

Auer Steel

A week after our visit to Fond du Lac, we headed to Milwaukee to see Price one more time as he brought along an ACE student he currently works with and plans to hire to attend one of Auer Steel’s one-day Introduction to HVAC Workshops reserved for high school students.

In all, 11 students along with Widmer and two other teachers from two other high schools attended the April event.

“We work in an industry that everybody needs,” Hirsch told the crowd at the start of the session alongside his Auer colleague, Tim Haag, training specialist. “Does it get cold in Wisconsin? Safe to stay you don’t want to live in a home in Wisconsin without some form of heat. People like us who work in this profession, we will always have a job.”

We’ve written about this place before when Auer first opened its 5,400-square-foot Technical Training Center two years ago (“Auer Steel Supports the Next Generation” PHC News, March 2023).

The facility includes a 25-person training classroom and 12 hands-on work stations equipped with live HVAC equipment that was initially opened up for Auer’s contractor customers to provide professional training for their current techs.

However, for high school students the one-day workshops offer a 6 ½-hour introduction to HVAC. The day includes hands-on activities related to many aspects of the HVAC

profession including introduction to electricity; sequence of operation of a furnace both taught inside the classroom and then at the work stations; a copper assembly building
activity; and an extensive furnace tear down and reassemble exercise where the students are grouped into teams. After completion, each rebuilt furnace is connected to gas, electricity and a thermostat and restarted to confirm it’s in working order.

Turning point?
We’ll close this feature with the latest evidence – and we’ve read plenty more recently – that shows more and more young people are choosing to head into the trades.

According a recent survey by Resume Builder, more than 40% of Gen Z (typically defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) are currently working in or pursuing a skilled trade job.

The findings reveal that many young adults are turning away from traditional college-to-career pipelines in favor of skilled trade work. In total, ResumeBuilder.com surveyed 1,434 U.S. Gen Z adults ages 18 to 28.

The survey shows that 42% of Gen Zers are currently working in or pursuing a skilled trade job, including 37% of those with a bachelor’s degree. Among Gen Z college grads, 34% say they are already in a trade role, and 3% plan to pursue one.

Motivations include better long-term prospects, disillusionment with college outcomes and protection from job loss due to AI.

The findings also reflect the motivations of Gen Zers who haven’t pursued a degree. Among this group, 60% say they want to start earning sooner, and 40% want to avoid student loan debt. Others cite job security, hands-on preferences and the ability to earn a strong income without a degree.

This article was originally posted on the PHS news website.