Jordan Hurt (Heating and Cooling Technology ’19) says he is “just so fortunate” that he chose to pursue a Heating & Cooling Technology degree at Mitchell Tech.
“I got started working with a plumber in Minnesota,” but transitioned to working in heating and cooling upon moving to South Dakota. “I really liked it and wanted to keep moving forward with it. I had the idea that I wanted to start my own business, and that’s what brought me to Mitchell Tech,” he said.
Starting college at 24, Hurt said his career path turned out exactly as it should have.
“When I left high school, there was a lot of uncertainty about what I wanted to do.” So he dabbled in a few odd jobs before settling on the trades. “I wouldn’t have done it any other way,” he said, noting that, while an education isn’t required of heating and cooling professionals, it definitely helps. “You can start with any contractor, spend the time and work your hours and you’ll learn it, but if you come to school and put forth the effort, you can jump leaps and bounds ahead of where you’d be if you were just working,” he said. “I highly, highly recommend trade school over anything else. It’s a demand and a need that’s never going away. There’s the mechanical side and using your hands, but there’s also a ton of knowledge, whether that’s theories or actually sizing a home properly. That part of it, I probably would have never learned (on my own). You can drive by a house and guesstimate, or you can
actually know, and that’s the stuff that actually really helps.”
Plus, he said, most contractors are offering educational reimbursement programs for professionals who have completed their degrees and want to go to work. Now owning his own business, Complete Comfort, Hurt said he is on the hunt to hire employees and, in visiting with instructors at various colleges that offer similar programs in the Midwest, he is even more positive that
he chose the best to get his education.
Instructor Jason Juhnke “is far and above everyone else,” Hurt said. “You sit down and talk with Jason and you look at the facility, and there’s no comparison. Anyone that I talk to about what school they should go to and what program they should get into, I highly recommend this one. To me, it’s the best one in the tri-state area.”
