In this episode we discuss the benefits of a career in building automation and how to get started.
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Resources mentioned in this episode
Transcript
Phil Zito 0:00
This is the smart buildings Academy podcast with Phil Zito episode 298. Hey folks, Phil Zito here and welcome to episode 298 of the smart buildings Academy podcast. In this episode, we're going to be talking about establishing a career in building automation. All of the resources mentioned in this episode will be available at podcasts, smart buildings academy.com Ford slash 298. Once again, that is podcast that's smart buildings academy.com Ford slash 298. So my goal with this series you know, I've been doing these like series of episodes lately, we just finished the construction series. My goal with this series now is to describe what a building automation career is. And then to go and take you through each individual role. So I'll be doing the roles in future episodes. Alright, so let's dive in. Why do I think you should have a career in building automation system? Well, one, it pays good. I'll be straight up with you. Like the pay is awesome. I mean, the cost of training has dropped significantly. All these people who tell you it take seven, nine years to go and learn how to do building automation. Yeah, they're full of crap. I know. I know. pissed off a lot of people, but the reality is, most of us, most of you listening to my voice. You're gonna be doing vav boxes, air handlers, air cooled, chiller centrifugal chillers and pumps, mixing valves, etc. Now, every time I say this, I get flamed, I get emails, I get people. Oh, Phil, what about heat pump chillers? What
Phil Zito 1:47
about, you know, that one incident incident where I had to go and do this super custom thing. And it was super custom. And I've never had to do it again. But it was super custom and took me decades to learn how to do that. Once again, kind of key phrase, it's super custom. So the reality is what is required for building automation is not that difficult to learn. I mean, we got to learn some a track theory, we got to learn some electrical, some it and then some bas stuff. And then we pretty much can guarantee ourselves a six figure paycheck for the rest of our lives. I'm telling you folks like this is the most in my opinion, under utilized career path for folks who like to work with their hands, but yet also like technology, and like to see really cool places. I mean, some of the most fun times I've had in my life have been from building automation, my career in building automation. I mean, like, got to go see some really cool places. Have you been inside Federal Reserve and seeing how they print money? I have. Have you been to Bill Gates's house and scene mechanics put on scuba gear and go scrub his coils that are in the lake for his water source heat pump systems I have. Have you gone to a billionaires two storey apartment, which was like the size of, you know, like four of my houses. Yeah, I've done that too. Have you gone and seen like a hedge fund investors, little campus dude ranch thing and got to see, you know, a sprawling estate. I mean, the list goes on and on. airports, data centers, hospitals, got to see some of the coolest places in the world, and got to work on them and develop them and get their systems running a lot of fun, and I got paid really good to do it. Which brings us up to working the job availability in building automation, it is nuts. I have literally heard multiple times these past couple weeks, that if you are breathing, and can spell Bas, we will hire you. Now I don't know if that's true. I don't think I would want to hire someone just because they can breathe and say three letters. But the key point is there is such a talent glut. There is such a exodus of experienced folks in building automation and so much demand for building automation. That depending on projections, this is going to continue for the next five to seven years where there is going to be an excess of job openings and a lack of people and what does that mean look at the housing market. And you know what that means? It means that there is an opportunity to make good pay. There's an opportunity to have good work to work for good companies to grow a career. I'm telling you folks building automation, one of the most underappreciated career fields. I mean where Do you get to work with electricity, HVAC systems, IT systems, computers programming. You get to work on complex projects, financials, all sorts of fun stuff. It's not Brett backbreaking, though. And that's a key point, you know, I have had folks in my career tell me, you need to be a mechanic or you need to have been a mechanic to be in Bas, that's not true. You don't need to have to been a mechanic you don't know need to have to been an electrician, an IT person. You just need to have aptitude to learn the concepts. Now, would being one of those things help? Yeah, of course it would. That's why I see a lot of mechanics who are tired of carrying compressors around, who are tired of going and being out on the roof and just doing miserable labor. And they're like, Man, this sucks, I'm break breaking my back here. I'm not enjoying just the over the top, wear and tear. It's happened on my body, which I will tell you, you know, now almost 40 I'm 39. So I'm almost 40. I will tell you like the older you get the older you feel. So appreciate your body and use while you have it. I wish I'd done that more when I was younger. Like I said, there are so many things you can do in building automation. My hope is that by the end of this episode, you're fired up, you're like, hey, I want to learn more about each individual role, which will be doing individual podcast episodes on, I want to learn about each individual role. And I want to pick one of those and I want to move into this field. My hope is that for those of you who are already in this field, you're listening to this and you're sharing this with potential folks who want to get into this field, there's so much you can do. You like graphics you like graphical art, guess what you can work on graphics, you like engineering and designing, you can be a designer, you like going out there and fiddling with things or working with your hands, you can be a installing technician, you like doing computer stuff, guess what you can go be a programmer. You like operations and management and being in charge of multiple projects. At the same time. You can be a project manager you like selling you can be in sales, there are so many things you can do. And literally, there are openings for every single role I just described at probably every company within your city that you're sitting in right now. Unless you're like in the middle of Antarctica, then there might not be job opening. Future Proof. This is a huge one. I got into a I don't want to say debate. But it was an uncomfortable conversation with family. Because I told them, I think truck drivers are going to be replaced. I think fast food workers are going to be replaced. I mean, there's only so long you can go and increase wages on low skill work. And let's be honest, I mean, it's it is low skill work. I'm not saying that that reflects on anyone's intelligence, it just not require a ton of skills to do fast food work. Now obviously truck driving requires more skills. But the thing is, is as those jobs start to pay more and more and more, there will become a tipping point at which it is cheaper for these companies to employ robots than it is for them to pay people. And I know no one likes to talk about that. And it seems sci fi ish and everything but I'm telling you, those days are coming. I went to my local Walmart the other day because that's where I get my groceries from walked in there. And they put in, I think, almost 30 self checkouts. 30 self checkouts because they are gradually replacing cashiers. I have one to two cashiers in there. Every time I go one to two, they want you to primarily do self checkout. So we're going to see jobs that are low skill being replaced. The thing about it, I have no.
Phil Zito 9:02
How do I say this? I know at some point, building automation jobs will be automated by robots. I mean, at some point construction work will be automated by robots do not think it's going to be in my lifetime. There's just too much dexterity, and hand eye coordination requirements that I don't foresee it happening. Although I did see a robot that literally shot drives the job site and pre drills all of the holes for the electrical and piping. It basically goes around and pre drills and it was pretty crazy. And I was like wow, that is pretty interesting. So our career field is future proof, at least for my lifetime. And that is really important. That is something I would sincerely think about. If you don't want to go to college, you don't want to become a doctor or something like that. But you want to make some really good income, then this is something you should think about. So How'd you get started in this? So you listen to this past 10 minutes and you're like, I'm all fired up, I want to do this, it sounds interesting, or at least I want to learn more. Well, to learn more, you can go to podcast that smart buildings academy.com Ford slash 298, I'll have a link to all of our career resources. And you can just read about the career or listen to other podcasts. Now, if you actually want to learn, I'm not going to start off by talking about our training services, because I feel like that would be pretty biased. So I'm going to point out other training services, and then I'll talk about ours. So college, there are some building automation college programs. These are four year programs, I think that it personally in my opinion, is way too long and not needed. I don't think you need a degree for our field. And I think taking four years to learn our field has a huge opportunity cost and I don't think it will return on your investment. There are trade schools and these are hit and miss some trade schools are really good, some are not really good. Some of them are really fast. Some of them are multiple years, I will tell you that it's hit or miss. If you are going to go to a trade school. Three questions I would ask one is what is your placement rate with companies to what is the age of the equipment that we will be using at the trade school? So I guess four questions three, what is the experience of the instructor? Who is teaching at the trade school? And then four? I would ask, I would basically say like, what level of hands on exercising theory experience are we going to get what's the curriculum like? The third option is OJT. You just go and you get in, you get hired as a helper, maybe you start in the warehouse, maybe you start as just someone carrying tools around. And then you gradually work your way up. This is how I did it. I mean, back when I was in the day, back in the day when I was first starting off, there really weren't trade schools. I mean, there were a handful, but not really, there were no college programs. So I got hired straight out of the military. You're going to work at a glass factory soap factory, or you're going to work in bas. I'm like, ooh, Bas sounds way better than those two options. And it was literally trial by fire. I got handed Honeywell gray manual and told go program things. I'm like, I have no idea what I'm doing. It was a lot of reading, a lot of studying a lot of breaking things and not really knowing what I was doing but was able to figure it out. Fortunately, a lot of companies have a more disciplined OJT process now. But still, nonetheless, with OJT, you are at the mercy of whoever you're paired up under. Hopefully, they have a process and a program. Hopefully this person knows how to teach and actually cares about teaching. So your mileage may vary. And then of course, there's us. We have a history now of over 9000 students going through our programs and advancing in their careers. Some of these folks are already in building automation, and they are taking training so that they can get a new position. Others have just been hired by building automation companies and our training as part of their onboarding process. And still others are just taking this out of their own pocket, right. They're paying themselves. And they're going through our training programs, and then connecting with us and our companies that we serve so that they can get hired into the field. We do not share our students info if they are currently employed at a building automation company. But if they are not employed in the field, we are more than happy to connect them with potential companies that could find them employment.
Phil Zito 13:43
So what roles exist like I mentioned, throughout this, there's technicians, installers, designers, programmers, project managers, salespeople, integrators, the list goes on and on service roles, construction roles, and over the next several episodes, we're going to be diving into each role, we are going to go and look at what is the role, like how does the role work? We're going to talk about the requirements for the role, what does a day in the life of that role look like? So you can kind of picture that, and then how do you get into that role? And so we're going to go through technician, designer, programmer, project manager, service tech and sales over the next several episodes. If at any time you have any questions, please hit us up in the comments section wherever you're listening to this, or go and send us a message. You can find out our contact information, as well as some of the resources I discussed at podcasts, smart buildings academy.com, forward slash 298. Thanks a ton for being here. I look forward to talking to you in next the next episode. Thanks. Take care
