Las Vegas contractor builds a trade-school model that starts with employers’ needs

# Why this matters Nevada's HVAC, electrical and refrigeration trades are hiring aggressively while the supply of trained workers is shrinking. Quality Training Centers (QTC), now partly owned by industry veteran Chris Roth, is testing a new training approach that aligns curriculum, hiring and metrics around the needs of contractors in Las Vegas.

# Roth's background and motivation Chris Roth entered the skilled trades in 1985 after his father enrolled him in HVAC school at age 15. He has worked as a contractor, business owner, author and teacher. Teaching is the role he emphasizes most. Roth bought a stake in QTC in January and partnered with owner Lonny Snowden to adjust how the school operates.

Roth frames the choice of trades over a traditional college track as increasingly practical: shorter training time, earlier earnings, and a labor market where demand gives prospective students a clearer path to employment.

# What the new model changes Traditional trade schools focus on accreditation, enrollment and graduation statistics. QTC's contractor-centered model shifts the priorities:

• Students are developed as the product to fill specific contractor needs.
• Core metrics are billable performance, placement rates and retention on the job rather than enrollment or graduation alone.

Roth describes the program's message to contractors as "scale your business." The aim is to produce workers who can quickly contribute to billable work and stay in positions long enough to justify hiring.

# How the program aligns with employers QTC has sat down with primary contractors in the region to discover skill gaps and hiring preferences. The curriculum and candidate pipeline are built around those employer inputs. That includes the practical skills contractors say they need in HVAC, commercial refrigeration and electrical work.

Rather than training for a generic credential, the school tunes instruction to real-world tasks contractors will ask new hires to perform. The focus on billable performance makes the training more directly tied to initial productivity on the job.

# Workforce context in Nevada Roth points to two structural issues: the disappearance of shop classes in high schools, which reduced the talent pipeline, and an aging workforce. He says the average electrician or HVAC technician is in their mid-to-late 50s, which means many experienced workers are retiring faster than new entrants arrive.

That gap creates an opening for trade programs that can produce job-ready workers on a compressed timeline and with less debt than a traditional college path.

# Student value proposition For prospective students, the program promises a shorter path to income and on-the-job learning. Roth argues the trades are not a fallback option but a viable primary career path that many people simply weren't told about.

Because the school's success metrics are placement and billable performance, the program is structured to get students into roles where they can earn and develop quickly.

# Early positioning and next steps QTC is positioning itself as Las Vegas's first dedicated business-to-business contractor-centric trade program. The partnership between Roth and Snowden is built around reshaping how training, hiring and retention interact locally. The next practical tests will be whether contractors hire graduates at scale and whether retention and billable-performance targets hold up over time.

# Bottom line QTC's model reframes trade education around employer demand: ask contractors what they need, build the pipeline to match, and measure success by how quickly and effectively graduates become billable contributors. If contractors follow through on hiring, the model could address the immediate workforce shortfall in Nevada's skilled trades.