The Pro is the Hero: Field Notes from AHR with Resideo’s Jamie Quanrud (Episode 174)

Episode 174: Training is the Engine
Podcast: HVAC R&D
Guest: Jamie Quanrud, Learning Solutions Manager at Resideo
Location: AHR Expo
Listen here: Spotify – Episode 174

AHR is loud.

Not just decibels-loud… but ideas loud.

You’ve got shiny equipment, big claims, bigger screens, and about a million conversations happening at once. Everyone’s trying to show you “the future of HVAC.” And yeah—some of it’s legit.

But here’s the thing I keep coming back to when I’m walking that floor with the TradeCrew…

None of it matters if the tech doesn’t feel confident using it.

That’s not a knock on techs. That’s reality. Homeowners are watching. Time is tight. The call board isn’t getting smaller. And the minute you feel unsure, you can feel the whole job tighten up like an over-torqued fitting.

That’s why I grabbed time with Jamie Quanrud from Resideo.

Jamie’s right in the middle of the training conversation—what works, what doesn’t, and what the industry needs to stop pretending is “good enough.”

And she said a line that should be written on every training room wall:

> “The pro is the hero of the home.”

That’s not marketing fluff. That’s the whole game.

Because the equipment doesn’t walk into the house.
The app doesn’t explain itself to the homeowner.
The spec sheet doesn’t fix the system.

The pro does.

Confidence is the real bottleneck

Something that doesn’t get said out loud enough…

A lot of new tools and connected controls aren’t “too complicated.” They’re just unfamiliar. And unfamiliar, on a kitchen-table install, feels risky.

Jamie put it plain:

> “Unless the technician is confident him or herself they won’t use those things.”

Read that again.

That’s why product adoption gets weird in the field. It’s not always price. It’s not always attitude. Sometimes it’s a tech thinking, “If I try this new control and it goes sideways, I’m the one standing there with a homeowner staring holes through me.”

From the contractor side, confidence protects your time and your margin.
From the distribution side, confidence protects the whole category—because if guys don’t trust it, it sits. Collects dust. Gets returned. And then everyone says the product “doesn’t work.”

Most of the time?

It’s not the product.
It’s the training.

80/20: hands-on wins. Every time.

Jamie and I kept circling back to this 80/20 idea.

Not 80% PowerPoints. Not 80% “click through the LMS and you’re certified.”

80% hands-on.
20% classroom.

Because tradespeople learn with their hands. We always have. You can explain a wiring diagram all day, but the moment you’re under a furnace with your headlamp on, that’s when the brain actually locks it in.

And here’s the other shift Jamie talked about—this is the big one:

We’re moving from “training on a widget” to solutions-based training.

That means we stop teaching a thermostat like it’s a standalone gadget and start teaching it like it lives in a system. A home. A comfort complaint. An IAQ problem. A noise issue. A hot back bedroom. A homeowner who’s done being miserable.

That’s the world techs work in.

So the training has to live there too.

Resideo Pro app: not a gimmick—an on-the-job tool

I’ve heard the app talk from a hundred booths. Most of it is “look how slick our interface is.”

Jamie didn’t frame it like that.

The Resideo Pro app came up as a field tool—something you pull out when you’re on the job and you need a clean workflow. Pairing, setup, support, quick references… all the stuff that keeps you from digging through PDFs in a mechanical room with no signal.

That’s what “connected” should mean in the trades.

Not flashy.
Not cute.
Useful.

If it saves you ten minutes on one call, that’s real. If it keeps you from making a dumb mistake when you’re smoked at the end of the day, that’s real too.

Collaboration over competition (and getting hands dirty)

Here’s my take coming out of this conversation…

The industry’s shifting. You can feel it.

The old vibe was: protect your secrets, guard your customers, don’t help the next guy. Competition over everything.

That’s not how we fix workforce development.

We fix it with collaboration over competition.

Manufacturers, distributors, contractors, trainers, schools—everybody pulling the same direction. And not just in meetings. Not just in panels.

Getting hands dirty.

Putting real equipment on benches. Building real lab environments. Letting apprentices touch it, wire it, break it, fix it. Let them get reps before they’re standing in somebody’s living room with a family depending on them.

That’s how we build confident technicians.
And confident technicians build confident companies.

What I’m taking with me

If you’re a contractor reading this… invest in training that looks like the job. Real scenarios. Real troubleshooting. Real systems.

If you’re on the distribution side… don’t just stock boxes. Stock understanding. Help host the hands-on stuff. Make it easy for techs to show up and leave better.

And if you’re a tech… don’t let pride keep you from learning the “new stuff.” Nobody’s born knowing connected controls. Confidence gets built the same way muscle gets built.

Reps.
Pressure.
Practice.

Jamie said it best—the pro is the hero of the home.

Let’s train like it.

Ramblin’ Rhyno out. Peace y’all.

Want to catch the full conversation with Jamie Quanrud? Head over to the HVAC R&D YouTube channel or listen on Spotify. And if you’re looking for solid tools, resources, and the companies that help keep this thing rolling, hit the Vendor Hub to access show sponsors and vetted trade resources.