“I foresee our commercial refrigeration as being at the top of the list. There is such a demand currently for that level of a technician. I think our placement is gonna be high – close to 100% if anyone wants employment,” says Jeff Browers, plumbing/HVAC instructor at Northwest Technical College.

When you think of in-demand career fields with a very high earning potential, commercial refrigeration might be one that slips your mind, but the industry is growing and in need of some good workers.

“Commercial refrigeration is a profession that is unique and different than regular heating ventilation, and the reason for that is it’s more focused on facilities such as grocery stores, convenience stores, produce storage areas, and with each of those items, their temperatures must be specific,” says Browers.

For a while now, industry leaders have asked NTC to provide a degree program just like this one.

Darrin Strosahl, vice president of academic affair at NTC, says, “We’re excited because we received a grant and we’ve got some matching dollars to go with that grant, so thanks to the Nielson Foundation for that grant, but we will have about $300,000 worth of new equipment that will be coming into the program to help our students make sure that they’re really learning on the equipment that they’ll see out on the field and is currently out on the business in industry.”

The degree program will only take two years for students to complete, and when you graduate, you’ll have a universal license in handling refrigerants as well as working on the technical side of the career field.

“Because of its uniqueness, we felt it was imperative to have it independent unlike our other program, our plumbing and heating program, that are combined, the commercial refrigeration program is really kind of a standalone,” says Browers.

For anyone interested, there’s still a few weeks to sign up, but you should get the paperwork done quickly because that time will fly by.

Strosahl says, “There’s plenty of time to enroll in the next three weeks before fall starts, and we still even have some scholarship dollars that are available for folks as they come along.”