Raised by the Sheet Metal Trade, Ready to Lead

This is a profile of MacQuaid Brennan, a 27-year-old sheet metal worker in Montana who recently became training coordinator for the Montana Sheet Metal Workers Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee in Butte. She's the first woman to graduate from the state's apprenticeship program and comes from a family that owns a heating and cooling contracting business. There's no direct action for homeowners here, but it touches on the workforce behind the HVAC and sheet metal trade that installs and services home heating and cooling systems.

The piece describes how she moved from studying psychology in college to joining the union apprenticeship in 2020, drawn by steady pay and benefits without college debt. She now teaches Fire Life Safety classes, covering skills for handling fire and smoke dampers in buildings, and has pushed pass rates from around 50 percent up to 15 of 16 students in her most recent class. The apprenticeship program she now leads has 80 apprentices, and the local union has about 600 members and 20 signatory contractors doing HVAC, residential, architectural, and service work across Montana.

For homeowners, the takeaway is indirect: programs like this are training the technicians who install and repair heating and cooling equipment, including the heat pumps and other systems tied to home energy upgrades. Brennan's stated goals include updating training facilities and strengthening the curriculum, which could shape the skills of technicians working on homes in the state going forward.