Contributed by ESCO Institute Director of Technical Education and Standards Eugene Silberstein, M.S., B.E.A.P., CMHE

Having spent over forty years in the HVACR industry, as a technician, contractor, instructor, consultant and author, I had the opportunity to attend, and often present at, many national conferences. It was not, however, until my role transitioned from that of an attendee and presenter to that of an event organizer that I could fully comprehend and appreciate the true costs associated with the organizing, orchestrating and staging of these events. Quite literally, tens of thousands of man-hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars have been invested by hundreds of industry professionals to bring this conference vision to fruition.

Now, as I sit on the other side, serving as part of the dedicated team tasked with creating the National HVACR Educators and Trainers Conference, my appreciation of the process, especially given the challenges we have all been facing over the past year, has only grown deeper.

With the planning for the 2021 conference done, I find myself looking through the list of offerings and am utterly amazed at the vast number of sessions, the lineup of quality presenters, and the scope and variety of the sessions. Having worked firsthand with many of the presenters, and the production crews that filmed, edited and assembled the sessions we will soon see during the conference, I am now able to see the fruits of their labor. Soon, you will bear witness to the amazing job our industry partners have done.

As I look back at previous events, I now have a better appreciation of the organizations and their teams that made these events possible for me. If you will be attending the 2021 Virtual National HVACR Educators and Trainers Conference, and we sincerely hope you are, please take the time to thank all of the presenters, when possible, for their dedication to HVACR education. In addition, I hope that you will remember these organizations, which made this event possible for you, when it’s time to retool your HVACR programs.

As I reviewed the conference website this morning, I noted 127 individual events in the schedule, some live and some pre-recorded, that you will have the opportunity to attend. Noting the ridiculously low price of $129.95, I was able to quickly conclude, even without the aid of a calculator, that the price per session is about $1.00. Not too bad. In addition, with 120-day access to most of the conference sessions, you can see them all, even if you watch just one-a-day. So, for the next 4 months, consider this your multivitamin of HVACR training and education. However, unlike vitamins, there is no downside to exceeding the daily recommended dosage of training.

While this year’s conference has proven to be a daunting and labor-intensive project to assemble, I truly am grateful for the opportunity, and hope that you enjoy all of the sessions we have compiled for you.

Learn more by visiting escogroup.org and clicking the conference link.