Editor’s Note: The following comments were made in reference to the Nov. 25 column by Jen Anesi, titled “Hiring Women is a ‘Recipe for Failure’?”

Women Techs Can Be a Recipe for Success

As the service manager for a distributor of a major HVAC brand, I take tech service calls from our contractors. I have over 45 years in this industry as a contractor, an instructor, and now an advisor/troubleshooter. While there are not many women techs among our contractors, when I do get a call from a female, I panic (not really); as she likely knows as much or more than I do. We usually end up solving the issue by discussing our individual thoughts and then proceed to fix it. I would hire most female callers in an instant.

There are some male technicians who won’t or haven’t taken the time to learn their trade and seem to always depend on someone else to find and fix the problem.

Your letter writer should step back and look at some of these male techs, and see if they are “recipes for failure”!

Tom Schaefer, Service Manager
Upstate Systems, Buffalo, N.Y.

Valuing Women’s Contributions to HVACR

Part of my job is to provide product technical support to our dealer organization. I get calls from mostly male technicians, but several female technicians have entered the dealer ranks in our market area. When they call me, I treat them like any other tech, and I have no reason to believe these women are incapable of doing the job. On the contrary, several women who call me always start by giving me the model and serial numbers of the unit and a good description of what’s gone wrong including any data they’ve already taken, instead of “You’ve got a problem with your product!”

Like many of their male counterparts, I know these women are very professional, well-trained, and high-quality technicians. Quite simply, I value their contribution to our industry.

Ian McTeer
Field Service Representative

Publication date: 12/30/2013 

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