Gillis joined HARDI, based in Columbus, Ohio, in July with a mission to beef up the training programs the organization offers to employees of member distributors. With a shortage of prospective employees at the entry level who have much industry knowledge, and with employers telling him they’re hiring people right out of Home Depot, Gillis is developing an HVAC 101 course for distributors that will consist of several modules and cover industry fundamentals. 

The ACHR NEWS sat down recently with Gillis, via Zoom, to talk about his work with HARDI, how his industry experience has prepared him for this new role, and the value of career-long education. Here is a condensed version of that conversation. 

ACHR NEWS: HARDI, in announcing that you were joining them, said you were going to expand its technical training programs. Where are those programs now, and where would you like to take them? 

Gillis: The programs they have now, from what I saw … a lot of it is soft skills, trends, and what have you. The idea here is for me to come in, with other people on the team, and build up the curriculum, pull out what I didn’t think was needed. 

This is the vision I have: We’re going to have a four-hour prerequisite online training, with test and quiz. Some of it’s going to be on-demand video. Some of it’s going to be webinar. Some of it’s going to be a mix and match. 

I’m going to do a two-hour, in-person course. Some of it — a very small section — is going to be kind of what you learned from the four hours. The rest of it, I’m going to go through a bunch of fundamentals. … 

There’ll be quizzes throughout those two days, and a final test-out on the final day. 

It’s supposed to go for 16 hours. Following that, there is going to be a post-prerequisite training. And part of that’s going to be them taking upon themselves to go to their OEM website — if they sell Rheem, Lennox, Carrier, whoever — and look up model numbers. 

We’re going to do a one-hour webinar with me and one of my partners. And we’re going to be kind of an “Ask the Experts,” if you will. We’re going to open the floor, to just pepper us with questions and air it out. 

ACHR NEWS: For the in-person training, are you going to travel around to offer that training, or will it all be in the Columbus area? 

Gillis: Some people have already said they want me to come to them, like I did with Chemours and Copeland. 

Right now, if I had to throw something to the wall, it’s about a 60-40 mix — 60% of me going somewhere and 40% coming to Columbus. 

ACHR NEWS: When might we see some announcements from HARDI about the programs you’re developing? 

Gillis: I hate to overpromise and underdeliver, but I feel strongly that we’re going to have something pretty near finished at least by October. 

I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of guy, and I’ve been working every weekend on this, and we’ve got some very talented curriculum people, the most talented marketing curriculum people I’ve ever seen in my life. 

ACHR NEWS: You’ve had a number of different roles in your career in HVAC. What parts of your career do you find that you draw on the most to be a successful trainer and educator? 

Gillis: Well, definitely the in-field part, the installation and running service. I ran a lot of hours. I spent a lot of windshield time in the truck — many, many hours. Looking back on it, I don’t know how I did it. … 

I was a laid-off steelworker who answered an ad about the size of a postage stamp for a Lennox dealer just down the road, a mom-and-pop place, less than five employees. And I just started putting myself through school every night, three nights a week, working eight hours. … And since then, I just kept taking tests and got my journeyman’s license and so on and so forth. 

I’ve taken all that stuff — and, being an older person, my wisdom and all the things that I’ve seen through my life — to my training. 

ACHR NEWS: From your perspective, in which HVAC subjects is training most needed right now, not just among HARDI members but across the industry? 

Gillis: I think there needs to be a lot of training (on) the electrical side of it. Not to play the mechanical side down. 

I think people need to get a better understanding of, just, the physics of what we do … what each component is actually doing. 

None of us are too old to learn. I’ve had people come up to me and almost cry, literally water in their eyes. … We were in Chicago and the guy started just tearing up, and he didn’t want anybody else to hear: “You’re the first person that’s ever taught me a PT (pressure-temperature) chart where I understood it.” 

I still hold that today to my heart. I’m almost getting emotional myself now, but it’s a true story, and I’ve gotten a lot of good stories, but that one never left me. 

The basic fundamentals are always going to be your foundation. 

Moving forward, I think inverter technology is huge. … And I’ve said this for four years now, because I taught VFDs (variable-frequency drives) at Emerson. That, to me, is probably the future. It is the future. And they need to understand that technology as best they can. 

ACHR NEWS: Technology changes rapidly, and business practices do as well. What is your view of the importance of career-long training for HVAC pros? 

Gillis: About 10 years ago, there was a shift where we weren’t getting enough people like myself that wanted to go to the trades. And the ones that were going there, they weren’t pumping out enough. 

It’s even compounded worse now, with everybody needing skilled labor, whether it’s CNC (computer numerical control machining), or factory workers, or whatever. 

(Now businesses are) actually setting up training rooms in their business with live equipment, and they’re doing training weekly, and they’re even graduating them with a certificate. 

People come up to me after I teach … and they’ll ask me, “What’s your opinion on a good company?” 

Well, we all know you need good pay. We all know you need good benefits. But culture — are they going to invest in you? If they’re investing in you, that’s a sign of a good company. 

And the best companies are investing (in) their people and have the best soft skills, the culture in there, and they’re hanging on to them. You know, it’s not all about money. 

The companies that do these things right, with the training especially, they grow. It’s really about investing in that person.