Speaker 1: The ESCO Institute and our affiliates have the resources to keep you, or the training you offer, current and relevant in the ever-changing HVACR industry. If you are an instructor or school administrator looking to create or elevate your HVACR program, the HVACR Education Resource Network, or HEARN, can assist you. The HVACR Education Resource Network helps connect you with industry experts who can help you obtain equipment, tools, trainers, curriculum, credentialing, and other necessary resources to build a world-class HVACR training program. To help instructors cover the basic knowledge areas and skills that need to be incorporated in their program, our HVAC Excellence Affiliate offers a free competency and task list. This valuable document can be downloaded by visiting escogroup.org and clicking on the certification link. Incorporating these tasks and competencies into your program is easy, as industry-leading publishers have crosswalked their publications to this list. Look for the HVAC Excellence logo on the cover of your textbook and their correlations on their website. To help prospective students and industry partners identify educational programs that either meet or exceed industry standards, some institutions voluntarily pursue programmatic accreditation. HVAC Excellence is the oldest and largest provider of accreditation in the HVACR industry and provides third-party validation that a program possesses the resources and administrative support to prepare students for entry-level positions in the HVACR industry. Whether you're looking to learn, keep current, or teach others, ESCO is a singular source for textbooks, e-books, training manuals and videos, digital media, pre-recorded webinars, and immersive learning. Many of our programs come complete with a speaker-annotated PowerPoint presentation, instructional supplements, lesson plans, a syllabus, and even an end-of-course certification examination. As the industry moves toward digital content, our HVACR Learning Network, HLN, is a warehouse of industry-leading titles and subscription options from ESCO Institute as well as our educational partners. Many of our offerings allow the learner to download a Continuing Education Certificate – a CEU – which verifies completion of the course. We invite you to create an account and check out one of our free courses to see just how simple learning is on our HVACR Learning Network. Visit us at hvacr.elearn.network and create your account today. Throughout each stage of a person's HVACR career, they obtain stackable and progressive levels of certification. They do so to validate that they have retained enough knowledge in specific subject areas to become or remain successful in their profession. What makes our organization unique is that we offer portable and stackable credentials at all levels and stages in the careers of those in the HVACR industry. If you intend to work with regulated refrigerants or systems that contain them, EPA Section 608 certification is required by the federal government. While many organizations offer this certification exam, ESCO Institute is the industry's largest and most recognized program. ESCO understands that every student, technician, and training facility has unique needs, so we offer a variety of preparation options for this closed-book exam. When it comes to administering the exam, we offer options as well. From online testing with instant results to remote testing solutions, as well as traditional paper testing, ESCO has you covered. To determine if a student in a high school HVACR program has the retained knowledge to move on to the next level, we offer the Heating, Electrical, Air Conditioning, and Technology exam, better known as the HEAT exam. This 100-question end-of-program assessment provides instructors with the information they need to evaluate the effectiveness of their training. Let's face it, students are not technicians, so they don't meet the requirements necessary to sit for technician-level exams. With this in mind, we offer a series of employment-ready certifications, which are designed specifically for students and entry-level technicians. These employment-ready certifications are discipline-specific exams administered at the end of a training module or course. This provides instructors with valuable feedback to evaluate each participant's understanding of the course materials. Employment-ready certifications also provide employers with a standardized, uniform measurement of a job applicant's knowledge and readiness for employment, regardless of where they were trained or who trained them. Our specialty exams are intended to address industry concerns such as reducing warranty claims, reducing callbacks, and maximizing system efficiency. Possessing the knowledge needed to pass these exams verifies that an individual has exceeded the average industry job requirements to improve their value to their employer or potential employer. For technicians with two or more years of documented field experience, we offer professional-level technician certifications. These discipline-specific, closed-book, comprehensive written exams are used by experienced technicians to market their skills to prospective customers and employers. Knowing how to do something and actually being able to perform the task are two very different things. Our master's specialist certifications help differentiate between the two. Intended for experienced technicians, this series of discipline-specific, hands-on, practical certification exams demonstrate that an individual not only has the retained knowledge necessary, but can apply that knowledge by passing a series of performance-based, hands-on exams. When a person transitions from the field to the front of the classroom, they need to have a deeper understanding of the material being covered than their students. To ensure that instructors have a mastery of the physics and theories required to teach their subject matter effectively, ESCO offers a series of certified subject matter educator examinations. These specialized HVACR teacher certification tests, known as CSME exams, determine whether or not an HVACR instructor has mastered the subject matter to teach the competencies in each subject area being taught or if they need additional training in that area. ESCO offers several tools to help instructors pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in their instruction. Using the information in the various reports that can be generated, the instructor can easily determine if the deficiency lies with a specific student, a group of students, or if there is a weakness in the curriculum that needs to be addressed. Additionally, these reports aid in document preparation, which is required for Perkins compliance. To help those on the front line of education, we host the National HVACR Education Conference. At this event, attendees learn about new and emerging technologies, get answers from and become inspired by industry leaders, exchange ideas with industry peers, while gaining a better understanding of the future of the HVACR industry. Whether you are looking to improve your skills or the skills of those you train, ESCO has the resources to help you. We invite you to learn more by visiting us at escogroup.org.