After graduating high school and serving in the United States Navy for six years, Cale joined a building controls company as a service technician. “I was a young sailor, pretty raw, pretty unprofessional, didn't have those customer service skills, didn't have a lot of knowledge on what even HVAC was,” he says. Experienced technicians showed him the way. “They made sure I learned everything I needed to know- how to talk to customers, how to carry myself on the job site, how systems worked."

Cale has since gained 25 years of HVAC experience, including three promotions since he joined Trane Technologies four years ago. Cale is a passionate advocate for skills-based hiring and development. “You're talking to someone without a degree who's worked their way through the Trane Technologies organization fairly quickly, and I know several others here without degrees who have done the same,” he shares.

“There are lots of opportunities here to learn from great people. I think the cool thing about our senior technician population is that they're all STARs. And through the Trane apprenticeship program, they’re helping to make more STARs successful too.”