“I wanted to know what I could do to make good money,” he said.

So he started helping his godfather’s air conditioning company in L.A. a couple of decades ago.

“I figured out, I’m doing it right now … went back to Palm Springs, where the temperatures are really good for what we do, then moved here to Lake Havasu City because I was tired of busy towns,” Lorono said.

Lorono works at Air Control Home Services, doing service and maintenance calls for residential and commercial customers in Lake Havasu City, located in western Arizona. He started with the company about a year and a half ago, after recovering from a car accident in 2014 that left him in a coma for five weeks, suffering more than 2,000 breaks and fractures.

“I wasn’t supposed to live,” he said.

Eventually, Lorono got tired of the doctors and decided to try it his own way.

“They had me on all different kinds of drugs,” he said. “In February 2017, I was done with them. I got a membership at Planet Fitness … my son is a body builder and helped me do a plan. I started March 1 at the gym, worked out three hours a day.”

He lifted weights, built up his weight, and did exercises until he felt like he was ready to get back to working in HVAC, then he got his current job.

“He worked hard to make it back to work,” said Amanda Zink, owner at Air Control Home Services. “He is one of our top technicians and is always, always striving to learn more.”

Lorono appreciates that the company keeps technicians up to date as the industry evolves.

“They keep us on top of everything,” he said. “A lot of people don’t realize, we’re in an industry that’s constantly changing.”

One thing stays constant, though: his love for working with people.

“I’m a social butterfly; I enjoy meeting new people and conversing with different people every day,” he said.

“I’m going house to house, helping people out, and I get the satisfaction of knowing the work’s done correctly — not half-done.”

He’s 53 now and still going strong.

“Since I came back from the dead, I’ve been working here, looking at buying a new house,” he said. “I’ll retire from here … but I’ll probably be a part of this industry until the day I die. They can’t slow me down.”

To nominate an HVACR technician for Tech of the Month, click here or email tedcraig@achrnews.com.

Publication date: 3/11/2019

Want more HVAC industry news and information? Join The NEWS on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn today!