The 21st annual North Carolina HVAC/R Apprentice Contest was held on Friday, October 24th at the NC State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, NC. The contest is sponsored by the North Carolina Department of Community Colleges/Apprenticeship NC and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture.

The contest was opened with a Toolbox Safety Talk by a representative of the NC Occupational Safety Department (OSHA) who covers safety topics that are pertinent to the work that the apprentices will be doing during the contest.

The apprentices compete in a series of technical and trade skills stations that test the apprentice’s abilities in brazing, electrical trouble shooting, refrigerant recovery, system operational analysis, writing customer service reports and customer interviews. The contest also includes a comprehensive written exam. The stations and written exam are modified from year to year to provide a variety of skill tests.

Volunteers from various HVAC contractors, County Code inspection departments, equipment manufacturers/vendors work throughout the year to plan each year’s contest. On the day of the contest, the volunteers serve as judges for the various segments of the contest.

The contest is open to all HVAC/R apprentices and pre-apprentices registered with the N.C. Department of Community Colleges/Apprenticeship NC, and who will not have completed their apprenticeship prior to October of that year. Each apprentice/pre-apprentice must be sponsored by a registered apprentice program.

Cash prizes provided by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and the HVACR Apprenticeship Committee are awarded to the first through tenth place contestants. A wide variety of companies and organizations also share in sponsoring the contest by providing cash and other prizes that are distributed to the participants in the contest.

The 2025 first place winner was Camden Leonard, an apprentice who works for Brady Services, based in Greensboro, North Carolina and a Registered Apprentice at Guilford Technical Community College.

For additional information about the contest or Apprenticeship in NC, contact Ms. Amy Davis-Moore at the N.C. Department of Community Colleges/Apprenticeship NC, in Raleigh, NC. Phone (919) 807-6973 or visit the web site at http://www.apprenticeshipnc.com

For more information regarding Contest Sponsorship or Prize donations, you can email Committee Chairman John Todaro at: jjtodaro@gmail.com)

Submitted by:

William Spidel Jr. – Secretary/Treasurer, NC HVAC Apprentice Contest Steering Committee 704-579-8384
wspidel_421@icloud.com