Crimson and Gold Connection; Joel Levens

Welcome to Crimson and Gold Connection, keeping you connected with the people and current events at Pittsburgh State University. Thank you for joining me this week for the Crimson and Gold Connection on 89.9 K.R.R.P.S. Taking place Saturday, December 16th at the Kansas Center for Construction Advancement on the campus of Pittsburgh State University is the plumber's and heating of ventilation and air conditioning or HVAC professionals continuing education workshops. Joining me this week is Joe Levins, Director for the Kansas Center for Construction Advancement to speak about the first of three workshops that are being put on by the School of Construction that are scheduled over the next month. Thank you for joining me this week, Joe. Thank you for it. Nice to be here. Thanks for coming over to our studios. First off, could you give us an overview of what is taking place Saturday, December 16th. Saturday, December 16th is our continuing education program for the plumbing, heating, ventilating, air conditioning, contractors in the area that need to update their continuing

education requirements to maintain their license for the next year. Okay, so this is a state requirement then? It's a state requirement. It is implemented by the city and or county where they maintain their license. And the continuing yet is an effort to keep them current on the existing building codes any that might have changed over the last year or so or new ones that might be implemented in the coming years. The continuing yet requires six hours in an annual year, three of which can be non-codes so they can be more management related type issues. Three of them, three of the hours have to be related to the codes themselves. Interesting. I guess there are codes that change things that go ahead. They are occasionally. They will, as new technologies come on, new type of materials that can be used, then the codes are rewritten to address the use of those new materials. So we try to keep current with what the new codes are coming up and giving them ideas.

We'll also review sometimes the presentations, we'll review maybe mistakes that are currently happening or that the inspectors see on a reoccurring basis just to bring those to everybody's attention to try to mitigate them as much as possible. And I saw on your guys' website there will be three speakers at this event. We have three speakers this year. We have one from Wichita, Darrell Boger. We also have Michael Schilling from Kansas City who is an attorney that specializes in the construction industry and he's going to talk a little bit about how to get paid more effectively. So that's more of the management type non-code class we're going to have in the morning for everybody. And then our last speaker is Bobby Doran who is actually part of the extension, kind of my counterpart to a certain aspect with Texas A&M down in college station, Texas. And so he's making the trip up. So we've brought in our horizons a little bit this year and bringing in some different speakers, which was some of the feedback we got from last year was they wanted to hear

some different topics. So we're trying to address that this year. Yeah, you wouldn't think at a conference like this or a seminar that you would need a lawyer to talk about how getting paid. Is that a problem? Well, not typically, but it just gives them some better maybe procedures to do. I think for the most part our customers are pretty good about paying on time, but occasionally you have some that delay payments for whatever reason. And so the contractors just need to be nowhere they stand and what they can do that would maybe create that better cash flow for them. Interesting. So is this a hands-on event or is it all in the classroom or? It's mostly in the classroom. The guest speakers have the option of giving them a handout that they can follow through. When they're in some of the code things, sometimes they have to make calculations on load requirements for heating ventilating or how much fluids can run through a pipeline or those type things. So in that aspect, there are some hands-on type calculations that they will do, but it's

mostly in classroom type as opposed to the laboratory type thing. Now this one is geared specifically towards plumbers and HVAC. That's correct. Professionals, what makes this one geared towards those kind of people that work in that field? Well, it's specifically to the codes for the plumbers and the heating ventilating type mechanics that install those either in residential or light commercial, commercial type applications. So you'd be your heating, air conditioning systems, your domestic plumbing, sanitary sewer systems, so it fits specifically just for the plumbers and HVAC professionals. Now this was a little unclear to me. Is there a test at the end of the day? There is a test? No, we have no test, or as a part of this session, they're just continuing education that they show up and participate. They have to sit in the seat for three hours to enlist and get the certificate at the end.

Then they can submit the copies of that certificate to the licensing board, which then gives them credit for to continue their license for another year. Now this is one of three seminars that are taking place over at the Kansas Center for Construction Advancement. What are the other two topics about next month? Next month, we also do training for American Concrete Institute. So there's numerous type professional certifications there. Next month, we'll be doing one of the field technicians that actually take samples of concrete when it's still in its fluid state. So it's delivered to the job site. We take tests for slump. We take cylinders of it that then can be cured and broken at a later time to test for the actual strength of the concrete. And so to be able to do those tests on site, the individual has to have gone through the training and have that certification to be able to do that type of work. And then we also do training management type training.

We'll be doing a lean construction education program up in Kansas City. So we travel. We not only do the programs here on campus, but we do travel. And so we're doing that program, which is a lean construction academy. It's about 36 hours of actual training. So we're going to do it in a one week time frame. There's seven modules. So we're going to do it all over a five day period in Kansas City. And then later in Wichita in the spring time, we'll be doing it in Wichita also. So we have numerous type programs, not only on the testing site or the plumbing, heating, ventilating, but then also on the construction management side also for either continuing education or professional development. Yeah. Sounds like a well-rounded program. It is. And we're constantly looking for additional type programs. We did start one last year on building information modeling. So our associated general contractors of America has developed four modules related to building information modeling, which is really the virtual design and construction if you want

to describe it a little bit. So we developed using their program. We offered that on campus and actually had a contractor and some of their personal come from Wichita to our campus to get through all four of those modules. I've been speaking with Joe Levin's director for the Kansas Center for Construction and Advancement located here on the campus of Pittsburgh State University. Thank you for coming in the studio today, Joe. Thank you, Fred. For more information about the continuing education workshops, visit pitstate.edu slash construction. Join us for Crimson and Gold Connection Wednesdays at 8.50 and Fridays at 350.