Atlas Butler Heating & Cooling Wins Award for Training Excellence

The Air Conditioning Contractors of America (ACCA) has announced that Atlas Butler Heating & Cooling has won the association’s 2004 Jeff Forker Award for Excellence in Training. The firm’s president, Mark Swepston, says dedication to his team’s continual personal improvement led him to invest in constructing a 2,000 square foot, on-site training facility. The training center is equipped with state-of-the-art audiovisual technology and hands-on education tools. Atlas Butler has a guaranteed minimum of 40 hours of paid job enhancement training per associate, gives college tuition reimbursement for job-related college courses, and offers EPA training testing and NATE refresher courses and on-site testing. In a commitment to certification, Atlas Butler requires newly hired technicians to be NATE certified within one year of their start date. At Atlas Butler, training methods and programs are continually reviewed and updated. Presented this year during the Closing General Session at ACCA’s 36th Annual Conference & Indoor Air Expo in New Orleans, the award recognizes companies that have gone above and beyond the industry norms to ensure technicians are properly trained. The training award was renamed the “Jeff Forker Award for Excellence in Training” after Jeff Forker’s passing this January. Forker, the 2004 Spirit of Independence recipient (the association’s highest honor), was a longtime HVACR industry champion with a passion for industry education and certification. The other finalist for the “Excellence in Training Award” was Air Assurance Co., Broken Arrow, OK.