{"id":68082,"date":"2026-01-29T05:26:27","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tech.einnews.com\/article\/887534784"},"modified":"2026-01-29T05:26:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T08:26:27","slug":"local-businesses-celebrate-new-heat-pump-training-at-cmu-tech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/2026\/01\/29\/local-businesses-celebrate-new-heat-pump-training-at-cmu-tech\/","title":{"rendered":"Local businesses celebrate new heat pump training at CMU Tech"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Colorado Mesa University Tech was awarded a nearly $225,000 federal grant, the school announced Wednesday, to provide \u201cHeat Pump Employment Ready\u201d certificates to students as part of their coursework, as well as to interested area trades workers through community education courses. The grant also helps cover costs for an addition to the school\u2019s Mobile Learning Lab fleet, to provide similar training in Montrose and Delta.<\/p>\n

The funding was celebrated by local businesses in the interior heating industry, two of which \u2014 Grand Junction Winair and Avalanche Heating, Plumbing and Cooling \u2014 wrote letters of support for the grant.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe demand for trained and certified technicians is outpacing the current supply,\u201d wrote Jim Ostrander, Avalanche\u2019s owner, in one of those letters. \u201cA heat pump certification program at CMU Tech would not only benefit students but also strengthen the local workforce and help companies like mine grow and serve our communities more effectively.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grand Junction Winair Education Director and Lead Service Representative Matt Peiffer said such classes would help modernize the region\u2019s training for its workforce. He hopes it will also help bridge a gap between rural western Colorado and the Front Range, where training opportunities are more readily available.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack in the day, the way you learned heating and cooling, or plumbing, was you rode with a guy, and he\u2019d show you everything he knows,\u201d said Peiffer, who is also an adjunct instructor at CMU Tech. \u201cUnfortunately, some of this is newer technology (and) there is nobody that did it back in the day \u2026 there is nobody to learn it from.\u201d<\/p>\n

The heating and cooling technician of 25 years said the training was necessary to equip others in the trade on the Western Slope. There has been a nationwide push to move away from gas and propane furnaces and toward more environmentally sustainable and cost-efficient heat pumps, which use refrigeration to control interior temperatures rather than generating heat by burning fuel.<\/p>\n

While the newer systems have plenty of upsides, Peiffer said they were far more difficult to service and install than older, gas-powered technology, and required more specialized knowledge. That means the certificates now offered by CMU Tech can significantly improve recipients\u2019 employability.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can teach a guy to install a furnace very, very quickly,\u201d he said. \u201cBut to install a heat pump is a lot harder, because now I have to teach him how to do the piping \u2026 I have to show him how to wire one of the most complicated HVAC systems in the industry, and regular heat pump systems have a lot of wires to them. And these are all field-installed, they\u2019re not factory-installed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The school, for its part, said it was excited to offer new opportunities with the grant money.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt CMU Tech, we work really closely with industry partners \u2026 to determine what education is going to be most beneficial and relevant to not only our students, but also our local community,\u201d CMU Tech Vice President Brigitte Sundermann said in a statement. \u201cWhen we can create programs like this one that align with industry needs, our students are more successful and secure jobs easier.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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… CMU Tech<\/span>. \u00e2\u0080\u009cUnfortunately, some of this is newer technology<\/span> (and … than older, gas-powered technology<\/span>, and required more specialized … now offered by CMU Tech<\/span> can significantly improve recipients\u00e2\u0080\u0099 … our local community,\u00e2\u0080\u009d CMU Tech<\/span> Vice President Brigitte Sundermann …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68082"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68082\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new7.shop\/zerocostfreehost\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}