
My first job at 15 was as a dishwasher in a restaurant. I worked my up to assistant chef and helped open two restaurants. I chased my girlfriend out to California. I got married, managed a convenience store and got my real estate license. We had a child and moved back to Rochester MN. I became a grinder on a tractor cab manufacturing line and worked my way up to quality control. We moved to Caledonia MN. and I operated a metal lathe for a year and was so miserable that my wife suggested that at the age of 40 I go back to school. I got my 2 year degree in HVAC, started working at the Trane Lab and 20 years later I can say I've never had a job I've loved more.
I began as an intern while in school working in the compressor endurance test area. Upon graduation I was hired into a role in the acoustics and dynamics testing area and worked there for 14 years. I then moved into the air cooled chiller testing group for a couple years, then worked in the unitary test area, the large refrigeration water cooled chiller test area, the scroll compressor build room, and finally have spent the last few years in the compressor performance test area.
In each area I was responsible for the set up of the unit under test, setting up the instrumentation, data acquisition systems, and then operating the unit under test, the facility the unit was operating in, along with the acquisition and quality control of the data released to the test/design engineer.
In the last year I've have been tasked with the roll of mentor to our newest and youngest team members as many of our senior technicians move into retirement.
Multiple data acquisition systems (ie LMS)
Documentation and reporting
Quality control monitoring
All commonly used software ie word, excel etc
Brazing, soldering, ect
Teaching/mentoring