Lennox has opened a headquarters and training center for its National Account Services (NAS) division in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, built around a 6,000-square-foot (about 560 m2) space for hands-on commercial HVAC instruction, as the service sector continues to face a shortage of qualified technicians.
The training space combines classroom teaching with applied work on commercial HVAC equipment and systems, and is used by NAS technicians, managers and field leaders. Instruction follows four structured career tracks: Skilled Technician, Advanced Technician, Lead Master and Manager-in-Training. The center supports both technical and leadership development across the national service organization.
NAS also runs Build-A-Tech, a paid apprenticeship lasting six to eight months that combines classroom instruction, field experience and mentorship for people entering commercial HVAC service work. Since 2016 the division has trained nearly 1,600 technicians.
A second facility is under construction near the Lennox headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The 18,000-square-foot (about 1,670 m2) Commercial HVAC Experience and Training Center is aimed at customers rather than in-house staff, and will provide hands-on access to commercial HVAC equipment, controls demonstrations and application practices intended to improve building performance.
The Texas site will join an existing customer training network that includes nine Lennox LIVE residential training labs across North America and a dedicated commercial refrigeration training center in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
Lennox NAS provides maintenance, repair and replacement services for commercial HVAC equipment used by large multi-site retail operators in the United States, working through standardized service programs across customer portfolios that can run to thousands of locations.
