HVAC jobs touted at Steamfitters open house
JACKSON TWP — Call it a crisis if you want, but the local union working to help fill a growing demand for HVAC technicians sees an industry prediction that it will need tens of thousands of new hires over the next decade as an opportunity, not a problem.
Steamfitters Local 449 on Saturday held its second open house in two months, showcasing a new technology and training center in Jackson Township and an industry that both union members and the HVAC-R companies for which they work say is a hotbed of demand and opportunity.
“You can't deal without heat, air conditioning and refrigeration. They're essentials, and there's a void with not enough people to do it,” said Kenny J. Broadbent, the union's business manager.
On Saturday, Broadbent and other union members and officers were shepherding visitors through the group's new facility on Wise Road, showing off the training spaces and equipment they believe will make the Technology Center “the (Carnegie Mellon University) of steamfitting.”
With dozens of people gathered in the center's shop area, eating lunch or touring the facility, Broadbent said he wants the union to adopt a slow-and-steady approach to the training need. The goal for Saturday was to get 100 or 150 students through a mechanical aptitude test and, eventually, signed up for a 5-year-old apprenticeship program.
“Out of that, I'll get maybe 20 or 30 (dedicated) people,” he said. “What you want is motivated, determined people. You have to be the best: motivated and productive.”
Steamfitters, who specialize in piping systems that carry high-pressure steam, water, and other elements, are unique in that they deal with both commercial and industrial work across a broad spectrum of clients and job sites. HVAC-R technicians within the steamfitters deal with appliance-based applications like heaters, refrigerators, air conditioners and process piping. And the local Steamfitters union, Local 449, represents workers from across Western Pennsylvania.
That brings them onto job sites that can range from the ethylene cracker plant slated to be built in Beaver County — a four year, multi-billion-dollar endeavor that Local 449 officers expect will need between 1,500 and 2,000 steamfitters — to local grocery stores, where they help service and maintain the commercial refrigeration units that keep your lunchmeat cold; to steel mills, power plants and construction sites, where HVAC technicians install commercial heating and cooling units.
“We're everywhere,” said Joe Little, the union's secretary-treasurer.
For the steamfitters, the challenge isn't being everywhere, it's making sure they have enough people to stay there.
Over the next decade, industry projections peg the number of new technicians needed at 50,000, said spokesman Marty Marks in an email. That's a bona fide crisis-in-the-making unless the union can fill its apprentice system with young people who are willing to dedicate the years it takes to become a properly trained HVAC-R tech.
Wes Becker, a senior project manager for Renick Brothers, a Slippery Rock-based contractor specializing in mechanical services, said the company leans heavily on technical schools like Butler Vo-Tech to find fresh employees. But the challenge is molding young hires into expert technicians — and that takes years.
“The education never stops,” said Becker. “Every year the equipment gets more challenging and complex. Becoming proficient is extremely challenging, and generally out of school they don't have that ability.”
The good news, says Broadbent, is that Local 449, which opened its Harmony-based, 75,000-square-foot, $18.5 million Technology Center in January, is well-positioned to help meet the demand for apprenticeship training.
That's why the union invited the dozens of contractors it works with to set up tables and give visitors a sense of what they do and what they're looking for in new employees — something Mike McCarl of McCarl's Service, a Cranberry Township-based HVAC-R services contractor, said is critical to being able to fill that projected industry demand.
With about 35 technicians on its payroll, McCarl's wants to expand because of growing demand for service-side work and a regional boom in construction over the past decade or more. But finding veteran technicians who are willing to transition into heavy commercial work can be difficult and time-consuming.
That's where Broadbent and the union come in, and why events like Saturday's open house are critical. It's not only a chance for prospective members to see what the career has to offer, it's a chance for the companies who will be paying their salary to show what their needs and long-term plans are.
“It's just good communication; we're a partnership,” Broadbent said.
