Minneapolis Community & Technical College in Minneapolis, MN has some COOL equipment to train on, thanks to its industry partnerships.

When industry organizations i.e. colleges, labor, employers unite to improve training, everyone benefits. Sporlan, Hill/Phoenix, ZeroZone (Ramsey, MN), Southtown Mechanical & Refrigeration, Minneapolis Pipefitters Local 539, St. Cloud Refrigeration, and the 85+ HVACR students at Minneapolis Community & Technical College are working together to improve supermarket refrigeration training.

The HVACR program at Minneapolis College recently received an installed Supermarket rack system at a deep discount, thanks, in part, to the generosity of the organizations listed above.

The rack was designed and built by ZeroZone and the cases and piping were installed by Southtown with labor support by the Minneapolis Pipefitters. The cases were donated by Hill/Phoenix and St. Cloud Refrigeration, many of the rack controls were donated by Sporlan.

As a direct result of the generosity of these organizations, the college was able to obtain this training equipment for only 20% of what a typical system of this magnitude would cost. This equipment will be essential in preparing the next generation of HVACR service technicians.

Greg Skudlarek, the senior HVACR instructor at the college, is excited that, not only did they get this system at a small fraction of the market price, the college also received matching funds in excess of $174,000 from the Minnesota State College system from a program that encourages industry support of college programs such as HVACR.

The students at Minneapolis Community & Technical College should be very excited about this unique training opportunity! Learn more about the program at https://www.minneapolis.edu.