Katherine Theurer

I attribute my success to my parents. I grew up on a small little farm where we had a few farm animals and gardens, so there were a lot of responsibilities and expectations that were not up for compromise or negotiation. At a very young age, I was up taking care of the farm animals, working in the garden, and helping my mom can. My parents instilled a very good sense of work ethic in me at a young age, and also a sense of pride in the work that you do - knowing that you did that, you helped somebody's equipment function again, or you grew everything that's on your table. It's a sense of pride that you really can't get from being passive or lackadaisical. Beyond my parents, some of the men that I know in the HVAC industry have been very supportive. I'm a female in a male role, so you can kind of have that whole 'what are you doing here' type thing, but they've been very supportive and understand that I'm here because I want to be here.

The best career advice I've received is to be true to yourself. That's not just in work, but in life and with friends too. Don't try to be the mold that they need you to be - be your own mold, and if they don't fit, then you'll find somebody else. Everything else sounds so cliche, like 'the stars are the limits' or 'no one can stop you' or 'pursue your dreams,' but being true to yourself is probably the best advice. I'm sure somebody has said it to me at some point in my life, though I couldn't tell you exactly who.

Find something you love, find something you love, and pursue it. If you don't love what you do, you're gonna hate every day of work. Don't worry about trying to fit into a mold that somebody else says you have to fit into. You create your own mold that you fit into.

The biggest challenge and opportunity is that things are always changing. HVAC today is not what HVAC was 20 years ago when I first started dealing with this stuff, so just trying to stay up with technology and the changes in the industry is both the biggest challenge and the biggest benefit. Because things are always changing, there's always something new to learn. I'm a firm believer that there is an aspect of HVAC for everybody out there - they just have to figure out where they fit. It's not just carrying a tool bag. We've got programmers, product designers, people who need to train others how to use equipment, so there are so many different aspects of HVAC out there. And it's not gonna stop. People say AI's gonna take the jobs, but I say no, AI's creating more jobs because now we've got cooling towers and server rooms that need to be kept at certain temperatures to keep information safe. You can go work on a cruise line, in the military, be an airplane person, and find an aspect of refrigeration in there.

The values most important to me are hard work, honesty, and perseverance. I see the work ethic of our students these days, and it drives me nuts. I'm perfectly fine having a kid who's not the smartest - if he's got the work ethic, I can teach him what he needs to know. Hard work and responsibility are probably the things that I would say are most valued by myself.