What are some of the MAJOR Things that made your carreer good for you??? ....

[R12rules]

Would you care to comment on what made a huge difference for you to come and stay in this industry?

Was it a boss who took you under their wing when you were fresh out of trade school? Or was it a service manager who spent time Mentoring you until you got on your feet?

Did an old fart, (retired fart) Mentor you for awhile ... did that make all the difference?

Was it growing up inthebusiness?

[itsamine]

The free tools my dad gave me:D Some are old but still free.

[tinman]

It was the mentors. My hats off to Teddy, Fritz and John.

[aircooled53]

Don-Gordon Paschall-1975 Ductwork,design and construction.
Tom-Tommie Long 1981-1986 Service and design.
Dexter Davidson-Sales and Work Ethics.
Mike Bell-Service and Repair-Diagnosics.

Raymond Shade- The Best Salesman of HVAC I have ever seen.

My Wife[Breezy] for being there through the lean times.

[NormChris]

It was the excellent schools I attended and the absolutely excellent instructors I had. And, they were very exceptional. I have not met instructors who even come close to those I had 30 years ago. I have tried to pattern myself after them ever since. Still trying to this very day.


Norm

[flange]

ever since i was a kid i was a tinkerer, after high school didnt really wany to go to college, even though i had excellent grades, along with a pretty high sat. there were academic scholarships available to methrough some well known organizations. so one day, the father of a good friend asked me what i was going to do with the rest of my life. my answer was i dont know. he suggested i go down to the local and join the apprenticeship. there were fourteen hundred apps that year yet somehow i got in the first try. no relatives, no mentors the fellow who sent me was an electrician, but thought i was better suited for this. once i got involved i realized it was home for me, the money was nice, BUT I ACTUALLY ENJOYED GOING TO WORK. almost twenty years later i still do. i dont care for the state of it sometimes, that is always getting beat up on price, but you learn how to deal with that. my hands hurt sometimes, my back and knees hurt sometimes, but i find that usually occurs when im not working hard enough, and oh yeah i still like going to work, especially if i am mentally challenged.

[NormChris]

Originally posted by flange
ever since i was a kid i was a tinkerer, after high school didnt really wany to go to college, even though i had excellent grades, along with a pretty high sat. there were academic scholarships available to methrough some well known organizations. so one day, the father of a good friend asked me what i was going to do with the rest of my life. my answer was i dont know. he suggested i go down to the local and join the apprenticeship. there were fourteen hundred apps that year yet somehow i got in the first try. no relatives, no mentors the fellow who sent me was an electrician, but thought i was better suited for this. once i got involved i realized it was home for me, the money was nice, BUT I ACTUALLY ENJOYED GOING TO WORK. almost twenty years later i still do. i dont care for the state of it sometimes, that is always getting beat up on price, but you learn how to deal with that. my hands hurt sometimes, my back and knees hurt sometimes, but i find that usually occurs when im not working hard enough, and oh yeah i still like going to work, especially if i am mentally challenged.

So flange, you are saying that you are "mentally challenged"?

[hvac/r-ia]

What brought me here was watching older guys figure things out as I would watch in curiousity from a distance .....wanting to be like them someday...
Then wa-la I started training and going to schools and trades seminars then I got my break as a helper in a residential HVAC company, I was hard working and eager to learn, THE best incentive and HELP was the older expeirenced guys being so patient with me...explaining things over and over if needed and me complaining that I just wasnt getting it... then One older guy who has since passed told me one day you will wake up and it will be like a light bulb coming on and suddenly it will all start to make sense...well that was 20 some years ago and he was right and in closing all I can say is the wattage just keeps getting brighter year after year, and as a service manager now days I try to give all that and more back to the younger guys.... I love my trade and I love doing it everyday of my life...... thanks to all who ever helped me or answerd a tough question... I'll try to be as giving as they are and were.

[bigbird]

divorced first wife.

[refrtech]

In the 10th grade the HVAC Vo Tech teacher talked me into comming into his class to keep me out of trouble. Recieved a schollarship to trade school for 3 years of excellence in VoTech. I don't know where I would be if it wasn't for that VoTech class. I would probobally be locked up or dead !!

[infwsdm]

Originally posted by R12rules
Would you care to comment on what made a huge difference for you to come and stay in this industry?
money


Was it a boss who took you under their wing when you were fresh out ....

Yep, I learned by him saying "go fix that"


Did an old fart, (retired fart) Mentor you for awhile ... did that make all the difference?

Nope


Was it growing up inthebusiness?
nope

[R12rules]

Originally posted by flange
oh yeah i still like going to work, especially if i am mentally challenged.

Well then ... you gotta try working alongside Dice for a few days. That would certainly be a mentally challenging experience for you.

[maxster]

erector sets,block city,lincoln logs putting bikes together in the basement of my apartment from past generation that had left them and moved on,my mother always made me and my brother plug and unplug things...biggest item was 10 years with mom and pops and then 10 years with TRANE,manuals training,and the building boom of the mid-80s

[qbert]

my father taking me to work and teaching me hvac, and teaching me to do the job right.

[flange]

actually yes, the last couple of days have been good for the brain activity. but, problem solved, on to the next one tomorrow!

[swat]

I had a mentor that was mean as hell at first but then like a grand father and best friend later.

I also am grateful for the push to education he gave me. That by far a long with his mentoring has made me as successful as I have been and capable of doing what I can.

Personal characteristics have gone a long ways to but this mentor by far has more or less made my life.Even if he is the most foul mouthed old man that no one but me can get a long with.

[Diceman]

I think we need to all help fix up r-12's resume, he really, really needs to get back to work.

[dandyme]

Originally posted by bigbird
divorced first wife.

I`LL SECOND THAT

[Dowadudda]

I had really upset my mom one day, shooting my brother with a BB gun, for amputating my GI JOES legs. So when Pop got home I was told to get in the truck, keep my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open. Since that day, and I am pretty sure I was about 5 or 6 years old at the time, it's the kind of thing you just kinda get predestined into I guess.

[rob10]

1. Growing up in the business.
2. The four years spent as HVAC Superintendent at W.R. Grace.

[i_got_ideas]

Mentors for me too.....great co-workers....and applying myself 120%.

Even to this day all I think about is HVAC....I mean, think about it.....Friday, 9:15 pm and I'm on here thinking about HVAC stuff, what a looser :( :D

[condenseddave]

Federal sentence.

[hvacbear]

1. The best mentor THANKS Fig
2. Excellent school
3. No one there as soon as I got out of school. I had to learn by doing. Shure makes it easier to ask for free knowledge from the old guys now.

[absrbrtek]

Had a service supervisor that made me log everything out before youd call for help. Made it all come together, most of the time Id answer my own questions before calling anymore. Got me out of being lazy when I started in the feild 28 yrs ago.

Never really had anyone walk me thru anything, 1000s of hrs of reading and the school of hard knocks got me to where I am today.

Also laying out 10K to 15K of my own money to learn centrifugal and absorbers was a great help. That got me into high tonnage equipment pretty quickly and easily. Paid for itself after the first year, anything after that is money in the bank. :)

[Diceman]

http://hvac-talk.com/vbb/showthread.php?threadid=50074

[R12rules]

Originally posted by Dowadudda
I had really upset my mom one day, shooting my brother with a BB gun, for amputating my GI JOES legs. So when Pop got home I was told to get in the truck, keep my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open. Since that day, and I am pretty sure I was about 5 or 6 years old at the time, it's the kind of thing you just kinda get predestined into I guess.

Soooo.... if you had been a good little boy, you never might have got into this trade?:D

[uncle buck]

I always had a strong interest in Electricity. My mothers cousin was an Electrician and advised me to go to a Trade school. I took the 2 year course of Trade electricity in high school, then I spent 4 years in the Navy I was an Electricians-Mate. Through the last 25 years I have met many people who gave back to the trade and assisted me in the HVAC/R field. First and formost would be my Father who from a very young age instilled in me a strong work ethic.

[duc dowg]

I was going down the wrong road. I had just got married.My uncle knew someone in the trade Tommy stegal.My uncle talked Tommy into giveing me a chance. He did. I hated it but needed beer money.After a while I started learning then a truck came open. I was a lead man. It went to my head I wanted to be the best.I became very driven to do so.I am now perty sucessfull.I have my state hvac licens.I have alot of people to thank.tommy robert k mike s Don T johnny S and best friend rick or as yall know him slick rick

[2hot2coolme]

I worked in a factory for 7 yrs as a machine mechanic on the 3rd shift. I was getting sick of the politics and "soap opera" atmosphere, making $13.00 an hour and seeing others making 17-18 doing less work than I was. Long story short, I put myself into an HVAC College program while still working the graveyard shift, after 2 1/2 yrs quit and found a job as a service/ installer apprentice, met Sam Craig who had 30yrs under his belt knockin tin, and we went into business ourselves. I do have to thank him for all he had taught me (now he's retired) because now I am (knock on wood) successfully self employed, and very happy with what I do.
Oh yeah, and I don't make 13.00 an hour anymore, more like $200,000.00 yr.

[air of honesty]

God blessed/cursed me with an insatiable desire to understand...everything. I never had an interest or mentor as a young man regarding things mechanical, and as you might have quessed by now, my language skills were always my strong suit. Things began to change, when I signed up for the Navy at 17 and a less than scrupulous recruiter used my high overall scores as a reason to take the Nuke test, an area that he had a quota/bonus for, no doubt.

Despite poor math and science scores (lack of good teachers/motivation) I passed the exam and went to Nuke school at Mare Island. Had 3.2 marks through the bulk of the course before I learned I would not be learning to operate reactors, but patch up the mess when they went bad. Took some doing to go to steam Navy as a regular Machinist's Mate. Part of my rating was a/c-reefer, and I always wanted a berth, but couldn't get it from the backwater ship I was on. Really wanted to know how in hell the made hot things cold like that. The physics fascinated me.

Years later I walked in the door or a well known local contractor and told him I would work for $4/hr for 30 days while I figure out if this was what I wanted, and if wanted me. Even then, this was a bargain, and it turned out he was an old Navy man. Took me under his wing, which got me access to tutoring by first line techs. I started as a technician and worked my way back to installer, which is were it all gets done right the first time.

Tutelage/ mentoring and RSES provided my training, Nuke physics gave my the understanding. All these years later and I still like helping people live better and cheaper.

The trade has been very good to me. Albeit not 2K a year...

[billva]

a tech. named Manny. he was a border hopper who has been here for 20 yrs. and is legal. this guy was always willing to share the knowledge he had. i basically learned everything i know from him.

when i first started , he was in school and would teach me the lesson learned the previous night.

when i went to school i had basically learned everything already from Manny. school was a breeze for that simple fact.

i now have people under myself that i'm supposed to be training and I will never have the talent of a Manny.

[Edited by billva on 12-05-2004 at 03:29 AM]

[Ammonianite]

I was two years out of high school and two years into partying like a madman when my parents put the hammer down
and gave me a choice- go to hvac school or move out. Since I was working as a night mechanic at the local bowling alley
and making slightly above minimum wage, I chose the HVAC tech school route. And the rest is a history of crawl spaces, rooftops, and naked women.

[ntopliffe]

I'm a mechanical engineering consultant to architects designing the systems that you, hopefully, will someday service and say, "Wow that's a great idea" but to get there I am hopefull to get some advice and info from the members on this forum that have been in the business longer than myself.

I graduated and went to engineering school and thought that HVAC was the worst possible path because of how bored I was with the one class I had on it. Come to find out I totally love it.

I know I am in a little different side of the business but would love to bridge the gap between the design and construction world and the service world with a little hands on knowledge myself.

Thanks!

[ntopliffe]

I guess I. Didn't really answer the question properly. The best thing I have done for my career is to never forget that you can learn from everyone. This filosophy has served me well.

[Shophound]

I'm a mechanical engineering consultant to architects designing the systems that you, hopefully, will someday service and say, "Wow that's a great idea" but to get there I am hopefull to get some advice and info from the members on this forum that have been in the business longer than myself.

I graduated and went to engineering school and thought that HVAC was the worst possible path because of how bored I was with the one class I had on it. Come to find out I totally love it.

I know I am in a little different side of the business but would love to bridge the gap between the design and construction world and the service world with a little hands on knowledge myself.

Thanks!

A well seasoned mechanical engineer told me this today; "There are two things I'd like to see in my lifetime; a new building where the roof does not leak and the air conditioning system works correctly on the first try".

Were I in your shoes I'd ground myself solidly in the theory behind the air conditioning process, also known as psychrometrics. I'd also make it a point to keep in mind those who must work on any equipment or systems I design, knowing that aspect matters regarding ongoing overhead to keep the system going over time.

[keeplearnin]

Went into NAVY AND GOT GOOD HANDS ON EXPERIENCE. oTHER THAN THAT never really looked up to anybody cause usually worked on my own.

[ntopliffe]

Good Advice. I am constantly struggling to keep up with the constantly changing:

1. Building Codes
2. Control Strategies
3. Technology
4. Architectural opinion of what is aesthetically pleasing :-(

[zw17]

I went to college for two years and studied marijuana, beer, and getting laid. I was an expert at all three but my class grades were in the dumper.

Then mom and dad pulled the funding and gave me the choice to go into an apprenticeship or move out. Being hard headed and 19yrs old I chose to move out to keep the party going. Unfortunately it's hard to keep the party going at $8/hr working as a fork truck driver, then a meter reader, then crappy warehouse jobs.

I ended up going in that HVAC apprenticeship my father always pushed for and dropped the party life for the most part.

Almost 17yrs later and I could kiss my father for pushing so hard. It has been a very generous career for me. Now I am engaged, own a home in the country with some land, and drive a nice SUV. Life has been good to this point.

[craig1]

Federal sentence.

They sentenced you to a be an HVAC tech?

What did you do to deserve that? Must have been really bad. :cheers: