JEFF MEVILLE: I’m Jeff Meville. I live in Montgomery, which is local to the area, about
10 miles south of here. I own a company called Jenpro (sp) Incorporated. We are a subcontractor
in the weatherization business. We’ve got four guys right now working 40 hours a week
plus, so they’ve got us busy. We’re busy doing the work, and there seems to be a lot
of work out there to be done.
I’ve taken about six classes so far. Every time I’ve been up here, the training’s
been great. Above and beyond what they’re just doing in the classroom in front of us,
they’re willing to stay late or work through a break with us, and that’s tremendous help.
JACK WILSON: The test that he’ll be taking now will be the combustion oil test. It’s
the lab part of the test, and the written test’ll be tomorrow morning. The students
are going to come in here, a couple of them at a time. They’re going to start the furnace
up. They’re going to do a combustion analysis of the furnace. We use here for the training
center – we use a Bacharach Insight. It’s a combustion analyzer. They’re going to
take the information that’s stored in this unit when they’re done and tell us if there’s
anything out of line, and if there is something out of line, what they might do to correct
it. And we’ll give them the written test tomorrow, and they have to pass both of those
individually in order to pass the class.
JOHN MANZ: Through the recovery act we were able to get some funding that we needed to
ramp up the training to be able to put qualified people to the field. The people I find in
this industry really care about what they’re doing. They’re trying to do something good
for folks. They know they need these skills to do a better job.
KIRK GANNETT: My classes here completely prepared me for the job that I have now. Without these
classes, I wouldn’t be able to have the job that I have now.
I’m Kirk Gannett. I’m 43. I work for the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic
Development. I’m monitoring agencies. I’m out looking at what agencies are doing, how
their spending their money, and making sure that the work that they’re doing is up to
our Pennsylvania standards.
FRANZENNIA SMITH: I learned so much at the Weatherization Training Center. For sure I’m
a better inspector having come here. You can walk into a home, and it can tell you a history
of what has happened and why. And I think that’s been the most powerful that I’ve
gotten from this training is just to be a detective.
MR. MEVILLE: We like that we’re helping the people in these homes. They’re becoming
more energy efficient. You can actually feel the difference from when you get to that person’s
house in the morning to when you leave and over the next morning, when the conditions
are somewhat the same as they were 24 hours previous, the difference that you’ve made.
You know you’ve done something good.