INTERNATIONAL
TRAINING
FUND
training news
U A T R A I N I N G D E PA R T M E N T
“Training for the Future”
NOVEMBER 2016
UA GENERAL OFFICERS
General President
Mark McManus
General Secretary-Treasurer
Patrick H. Kellett
Assistant General President
Michael A. Pleasant
Executive Vice President
Rick Terven
TRAINING DEPARTMENT
Director of Training
Chris Haslinger
UA Special Representatives
Larry Slaney
Anne A. St. Eloi
Assistant Director of Training
Jim Pavesic
ITF Administrator
Jocelyn Crowder
UA Training Specialists
Rich Benkowski
Raymond Boyd
Phil Campbell
Bruce Dantley
Randy Gandy
Mike Hazard
Rod Jara
Phil Martin
Ken Schneider
UA Pipe Trades Training Specialists
Mike Gordon
Ray Lemieux
ITF BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Labor Trustees
Christopher Haslinger, Chairman
Shawn Broadrick, Local Union 669
Aaron L. Butler, Local Union 469
Wendell Hibdon, Local Union 136
Gregory Lancette, Local Union 267
Kurt Steenhoek, Local Union 3
Management Trustees
Michael R. Cables, (MCAA), Co-Chairman
Mark Rogers, (MCAA)
Cornelius J. Cahill, (NFSA)
Mark Kerney, (MSCA)
Robert Melko, (UAC-NAPHCC)
Frank Norton, (MSCA)
ISSUE 21
Message from
Chris Haslinger
Director of Training
I’d like to take this opportunity to offer my
sincere appreciation for
all the hard work you’ve
exhibited over the past
few months. We had a successful Instructor
Training Program in August, hosting 1,765
instructors, which included 367 first-time
attendees. This year, 150 instructors received their Certified Instructor of Journeymen and Apprentices certificates, 25 graduates received their Certificate of Certified
Training Coordinator, and 24 members received their Associate’s Degrees. This year
hosting the Instructor Training Program was
a particular challenge due to the scheduling of our 39th General Convention, which
has been described as the best ever. The
Training Department and all of the Training
Specialists worked hard at the General Convention. Some worked booths at the Expo
this issue
UA-ITF Mobile Service Tech
Training Lab......................................... p2
Fluke Connect........................................ p3
UA Online Learning Resources............. p3
Internet of Things.................................. p4
Apprenticeship USA.............................. p6
and others did a great job showcasing our
mobile training trailers. Everyone put forth
their greatest efforts, and I truly appreciate
it. At the Instructor Training program, all of
the new classes were well-received, and we
had a very successful Industry Day that gave
us an opportunity to showcase what we do
best and how we do it. The reviews of the
program that we’ve received have all been
very positive, and we’ve already started to
work on next year’s program.
mission statement
The mission of the UA Training Department is to equip United Association
locals with educational resources for developing the skills of their apprentices
and journeypersons. By thus facilitating the training needs of the membership,
we maximize their employability and prepare them for changes in the industry.
We are committed to making training opportunities available across North
America, allowing members to acquire new skills and remain competitive in
the industry regardless of geography. In this way, we are determined to meet
the needs of the piping industry and enhance employment opportunities for our
members, while remaining fiscally responsible to the beneficiaries of the fund.
International Training Fund • Three Park Place • Annapolis, Maryland 21401 • Telephone: (410) 269-2000 • Fax: (410) 267-0382
UA TRAINING DEPARTMENT
We are now working hard getting ready
for the upcoming Pipe Trades Training and
Technology Conference, Building a Successful Apprenticeship, scheduled for February 15-16 in Lake Buena Vista, FL, at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort. There are
a number of new workshops available for
training directors, coordinators and especially for JATC trustees. Please encourage
both labor and management trustees to
attend. We feel that the various workshops
offered this year will be extremely beneficial to the roles of JATC trustees. During
the conference there will be an Industry
Expo that will spotlight the latest in jobsite
technology, as well as exhibiting new training applications to try. This expo should be
particularly popular as you will be able to
try out new technology and see firsthand
how these new applications work.
What has made our program so successful
in the past is our willingness to keep looking ahead in order to offer our apprentices
and our UA workforce the very best training available. We know that technology is
going to play a huge role in the future of
the UA’s jobsites, and we also know that
this technology is rapidly changing. It’s up
to us to stay ahead of the curve. As jobsites
become more tech-savvy, millennials are
taking a second look at our profession. Our
training programs are key to our efforts to
organize and recruit new members—and
to keep our workforce prepared for the
future. Apprentice classes are now made
up of college graduates, and apprentices
who are starting second careers, because
they understand that the UA offers an opportunity for a lifelong career with good
benefits.
I’m excited about where we’re going, and
I’m confident that training will play a key
role in continuing to secure the UA’s workforce as the most highly skilled labor union
in the industry.
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UA TRAINING DEPARTMENT
UA-ITF Mobile Service Tech Training Lab
The demands of servicing high performance heating, plumbing, and
air conditioning systems requires
every service tech to understand
air flow, water movement, and
electrical components. The newest training resource for the United
Association is ready to roll into any
local training center and prepare
technicians to work in the residential and lite commercial markets.
The UA Mobile Service Tech Training Lab is designed to develop fundamental skillsets in
troubleshooting, repair and maintenance of equipment and also prepare one to measure
the performance of plumbing and mechanical systems.
The trailer is offered to UA locals as an independent classroom with systems that are
piped, wired, and charged. The Mobile Training Lab includes two split systems. One system is a 90% furnace with a coil and condensing unit, the other is a heat pump. Both
outdoor units are mounted in the nose of the trailer with ventilation options that allow the UA instructor to manipulate the airflow to simulate varying ambient conditions.
Wireless gauges are available for the student to analyze system performance either by
reading the gauge or downloading the app. Airflow measurement from the furnace and
heat pump is calculated using a vane anemometer that plugs into a cell phone. In addition, a reclaim machine and a vacuum pump are onboard to re-enforce the EPA requirements for refrigerant management. This arrangement allows the instructor to present a
complete hands-on experience from installation, service, troubleshooting, and analyzing
system performance.
Two sets of electrical component cards fill an entire wall of the
mobile lab so students may learn to install and wire relays, thermostats, pressure controls, etc. Pump alignment can be taught
using a laser alignment tool.
In the rear of the trailer is a heat pump water heater connected
to a pump driven by a VFD. The pump moves the water from the
HW tank through a pipe rack populated with different bore and
types of piping. The piping on the rack has ball valves at the inlet
and outlet so the instructor can demonstrate flow and pressure
drop through a variety of materials at diverse pump speeds. Wireless sensors track the
water movement and can be read in real time on an iPhone or/and iPad. The rack also
features a small lavatory with options for using a pressure dependent aerator or pressure
independent aerator to manipulate the flow characteristics. The heat pump water heater
challenges the service tech to understand both the movement of refrigerant through the
system and the thermal transfer to the water in the tank. A variable refrigerant volume
system is installed and operating, which can also be used to demonstrate the concept of
variable refrigerant devices.
November 2016 Training News
TRAINING FOR THE FUTURE
UA Online Learning
Resources
The United Association’s IT and Training
Department provides its local union taining instructors and apprentices with various online resources. This article will provide a brief explanation of the UA’s online
resources, which include both public and
private websites.
CONNECT TO FLUKE
For the third year in a row, FLUKE is holding the
“Fluke Connect Student Contest.” FLUKE is looking for participants who are enrolled in apprenticeship programs, two- to four-year vocational
techs, colleges and universities to present their
most innovative use of their new wireless system, Fluke Connect. Five finalist teams will be
chosen and given a set of Fluke Connect tools
and software to demonstrate their ideas. The
grand prize winning team will receive an all
expenses paid trip to Seattle and over $3,500
worth of Fluke tools.
UA Online Learning Resources
The most recent website is the UA Online
Learning Resources, http://www.uaolr.org.
This is an expanded and improved version
of what was previously called UA University. UA Online Learning Resources is actually a series of different resources for UA
member education and training.
This site contains UA Instructor Textbook
Electronic Resources, the Student Learning Resources and additional links to other
educational resources.
What is FLUKE CONNECT?
Fluke Connect® is an integrated system of condition monitoring, wireless test tools
and asset management software. Fluke Connect® uses radio-enabled test tools to
transfer measurements straight from the field to an asset record or a work order.
Measurements can be viewed simultaneously at the inspection site and from the office or an off-site location, enabling fast decision making and real-time collaboration
between team members.
FLUKE Education Program Manager, Toffee Coleman, encourages every UA local to
“gather your apprentices and get to work.” If you are not yet connected, please contact a FLUKE representative near your local to schedule a demonstration.
Here is a list of devices that are supported by the FLUKE app:
• Digital Multimeters
• Thermometers
• Clamp Meters • Insulation Testers
• Installation Testers
• Infrared Cameras
• Vibration Meters
• Power Loggers
• ScopeMeters®
• Power Quality
• ProcessMeter™
You can download the app by registering on www.flukeconnect.com, going to the
iTunes store, or the Google Play store.
November 2016 Training News One of the added resources is a UAwebBook™. Currently there are five titles that
have a UAwebBook™. All registered instructors have access to all the textbook
resources, including the UAwebBook™.
For students who purchase a textbook, if
a UAwebBook™ is available, it will be included with their purchase at no additional
cost. The UAwebBook™ provides the entire
textbook via the web and can be accessed
with a PC or any smart device. The feature
allows for the user to bookmark pages,
make notes, and mark items on a page.
UA TRAINING DEPARTMENT
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UA TRAINING DEPARTMENT
The new OLR consists of two major areas:
The Instructor Resource Library (IRL),
and The Student Resource Library (SRL)
Training coordinators, instructors, apprentices/students and training office managers must be registered to use the site.
The local union staff will manage their
own local apprentices/students and are
required to enroll all apprentices/students
in the system using the Local Union Dashboard. Each local union user will have one
of four “roles” within the system: Training
Director/Coordinator, Office Professional/
Teaching Assistant, Instructor, or Student.
The local must also assign a Local Administrator (Dashboard User), who is either a
TD/TC, Instructor, or OP to manage the local student users.
The two separate systems, UA Blackboard
(blackboard.wccnet.edu) system and the
second, the UA Online Learning Resource
(UAOLR.org) system, provide two different
purposes. Blackboard is a “Course Management” system that has features such as
class roster, assignments, and testing with
a gradebook. It also has student recordkeeping capability, whereas the UAOLR.
org system provides electronic resources,
such as images, slides, and quick practice
quizzes, but it has no recording capability.
The UA International Training Fund (ITF)
provides these resources, and the online
tools that are available to your local, at no
additional cost to your JATC.
Blackboard LMS
https://blackboard.wccnet.edu
Usernames (Login Names) for the new
UAOLR.org site are assigned to match the
UA Blackboard LMS—the UA’s two online
educational systems, so your username
and password will be the same.
This site is the home of the WCC-UA Blackboard Course Management System. It is a
secure site, which needs a username and
password issued by WCC. This system is for
online teaching of a particular course, or it
can also be used to supplement an existing apprenticeship program. Several local
unions use this system to conduct classes
remotely in case of foul-weather school
closings, for make-up classes, and for online testing.
The UA Blackboard and the UAOLR system username standard is as follows:
WCC - UA Blackboard is provided by Washtenaw Community College
First Initial, Last Name_ua### (### is your
local three-digit number)
Information and help for instructors is
available here:
Example: Rod Jara is an instructor from Local 9, therefore the username would be:
rjara_ua009. If the local was two digits as
in Local 91, the username would be rjara_
ua091. If two students have the same first
initial and same last name, such as Jane
Doe and James Doe, and they are both in
Local 78, the second student’s last name
is followed by a 2 (Example: jdoe_ua073,
jdoe2_ua073).
https://en-us.help.blackboard.com/
Learn/9.1_Older_Versions/9.1_2014_
and_2015/Instructor
It is important to understand that we are
using two separate systems. One is the
UA Blackboard (blackboard.wccnet.edu)
system and the second is the UA Online
Learning Resource (UAOLR.org) system.
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It is important to understand that we are
using two separate systems, and you may
use them simultaneously by being logged
into both systems at the same time.
UA TRAINING DEPARTMENT
Information and help for students is available here:
https://en-us.help.blackboard.com/
Learn/9.1_Older_Versions/9.1_2014_
and_2015/Student
Internet of Things
An increasingly growing topic in and out of
the workplace is the “Internet of Things”
(IoT), a concept that will soon impact how
we live AND how we work. A recipe for IoT
is being brewed by the expansion of broadband, the lower cost of equipment, the
availability of more devices WiFi capable,
and the skyrocketing growth of smartphones. This according to Jacob Morgan
from a recent article in Forbes magazine: “If
it has an on and off switch then chances are
it can be a part of the IoT. The analyst firm
Gartner says that by 2020, there will be
over 26 billion connected devices . . . That’s
a lot of connections (some even estimate
this number to be much higher, over 100
billion). The IoT is a giant network of connected ‘things,’ which also includes people.
The relationship will be between peoplepeople, people-things, and things-things.”
By definition: The Internet of Things is a
system of interrelated computing devices,
mechanical and digital machines, objects,
animals or people that are provided with
unique identifiers and the ability to transfer data over a network without requiring
human-to-human or human-to-computer
interaction.
From Daniel Burrus, published in WIRED®:
“When people talk about ‘the next big
thing,’ they’re never thinking big enough.
It’s not a lack of imagination; it’s a lack of
observation.”
Today, the most-connected device is a
“sensor”—the NEST thermostat. The NEST
is mechanically as intelligent as a nonprogrammable household thermostat. The
value the NEST offers consumers is emotional. The NEST knows when you leave
and when you are coming home through
your smartphone. The temperature is reset based on the location of the family
and tries to predict comfort levels for the
November 2016 Training News
TRAINING FOR THE FUTURE
mechanical system. The “setback” is programmed to take place without human
interface.
More from Daniel Burrus: “A sensor is not
a machine. It doesn’t do anything in the
same sense that a machine does. It measures, it evaluates; in short, it gathers data.
The Internet of Things really comes together with the connection of sensors and
machines. That is to say, the real that the
Internet of Things creates is at the intersection of gathering data and leveraging it.”
Let’s compare it to other technology opportunities that have our attention today:
According to the chart, IoT will have the
biggest impact in the near future. In the
Libelium Smart World several categories
may be opportunities for man-hours if
properly positioned.
UA-ITF training partner and President of
Mosaic Learning, Mike deSimon, offers a
training perspective to this trend, stating:
“Newly constructed buildings have begun
to have what can be considered Operating Systems. The apprentices being trained
today need to understand this new world.
Not only the Operating Systems of tomorrow’s complex building systems, but how
the IoT devices that are a part of those
systems will impact their work. Systems
will talk between themselves, constant
diagnosis will be data-driven, and dynamically reasoned system adjustments will be
made. Today’s tradespeople will continue
to install, service, and interact with these
systems. This means that a career in the
building trades is now a career in the tech
industry.”
Many experts feel that the IoT transformation will impact every business imaginable
giving all of us the most disruption, along
with the most opportunity, in the next five
years.
November 2016 Training News UA TRAINING DEPARTMENT
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ApprenticeshipUSA
The Department of Labor Celebrates National Apprenticeship Week 2016
November 14-20
In 2015, President Barack Obama proclaimed the week of November 2nd as the first annual National Apprenticeship Week. Last year, this week brought the overall value of apprenticeships to the forefront, and the week was viewed as an overwhelming success.
U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez said, “Apprenticeships are experiencing a modern renaissance in America, because the earn-while-learn model is a win-win proposition for workers looking to punch their ticket to the middle-class and for employers
looking to grow and thrive in our modern global economy.” During National Apprenticeship Week last year, the Department of Labor (DOL) reported that there were 313
events planned in 47 states, 58 proclamations, and more than 410,000 followers on the
DOL’s Twitter page.
This year, the second annual National Apprenticeship Week is scheduled for November
14-20, and thousands of career seekers, sponsors and stakeholders have committed to
host, sponsor and/or attend 129 related events throughout the country so far, including
many UA locals that have signed up to take part in the week’s celebrations. National
Apprenticeship week is an excellent time to plan an open house, invite high schools to
view your facilities, host skills competitions, have job fairs, or sponsor industry roundtable events. You can find out more about the week-long events already planned on the
DOL’s website. www.dol.gov/apprenticeship/NAW/?platform=hootsuite.
If you’re interested in promoting your apprentice programs, the DOL website has everything you will need to run a successful event, such as invitations, media kits, informative
pointers, downloadable logos, event planning lists, and thank you letters, to name just
a few. A list of events that are already planned can also be found on the DOL’s website.
Training Department
Office Professionals
Administrative Assistants
Debbie Walburn
Suzanne Ellis
Administrative Assistant (VIP)
Nicole Jeup
Publishing
Noreen Moucheron
Certification Department
Carrie King, Office Manager
Kristyn Ivey
Angie Sterling
Toni Perry
Registrar’s Office
Cathy Merkel, Registrar
Tracey O’Leary
Rhonda Stokes
Kiva Straser
Recruitment
Kiva Straser
Curriculum Coordinator
Rachel Shuman
ITF Finance Department
Helen Holmboe
Tammie Parezo
Pat Vallandingham
Kathy Walker
Tracy Webster
IPTJTC Bookstore
Dianne Lash, Office Manager
Peggy Jarrett
Darlene Lee
Jay Meadows
David Parmenter
UA TRAINING DEPARTMENT
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