(ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO) – The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation (SMART) Local 49 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, recently celebrated the opening of two state-of-the-art labs at its Training Center - a Pharmaceutical Lab and Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) Lab.

The labs, at 2,000 square feet each, will help train Local 49 Apprentices and Journeypersons on Testing, Adjusting and Balancing (TAB), fire life safety, ventilation, clean room, indoor air quality and much more.

Local 49 Leadership decided early in the planning stages to build a Pharmaceutical Lab, which has the highest standards of labs of its kind.

Chemicals in pharmaceuticals can be highly toxic and contamination is prevented through air flow and pressurization levels set by TAB Technicians in a clean room environment.

The lab allows Apprentices and Journeypersons to learn, problem solve and run scenarios they will see on the job site.

“If you train to the pharmaceutical standards, you’re training to the highest standards,” said Vince Alvarado, who serves as Director of Implementation for the National Energy Management Institute (NEMI), the energy efficiency and TAB experts of SMART. “You don’t want contaminated air or chemicals to escape - air can escape through the outlets in the walls and ceilings.  That’s why the standards are so high.”

Alvarado served as Business Manager at Local 49 when planning for the pharmaceutical lab began.

The labs’ rooms are created through pressure gradients, where a positive room is a sterile environment and a negative room is for containment.

This was especially important during the Coronavirus Pandemic, when rooms had to be changed quickly to accommodate the situation, said Tony Kocurek, the owner of Energy Balance and Integration and current International Certification Board (ICB) Board Member: “It’s a complicated setup.  These labs take a lot of coordination in their construction and setup. However, this pressure gradient and construction technique apply to many types of medical environments.”

The labs fall in line with the reconfiguration of Local 49’s Apprenticeship Program, which, beginning in the Fall, will include two years of general sheet metal knowledge - with the third year as an exploratory year to investigate all sheet metal specialties.

In their fourth year, Apprentices will focus on the specialty of their choice.

The labs also align with jobs that will be made available through various Federal funding opportunities such as ventilation verification, indoor air quality and energy efficiency.

Federal funding sources are pushing for heat pump systems, which is another way Local 49 is getting ahead of the game, said Isaiah Zemke, Local 49’s current Business Manager.

“The VRF Lab is technology that doesn’t require fossil fuels, so that’s right in line with energy efficiency,” added Iris Urquidi, Local 49’s Training Coordinator. “We’ll be able to certify our Apprentices and our Apprentices will be ready for those jobs coming up.”

Through partnerships with manufacturers Mitsubishi Electric Trane HVAC US (METUS) and Trane, equipment in the VRF Lab will be updated accordingly, with the Training Center providing space and installation of equipment and controls as part of the learning environment.

Screens also allow those in the pharmaceutical lab to view activities in the VRF lab so that simultaneous scenarios can be run in both labs.

“This is coming from the contractors’ needs, too,” Zemke said. “The pharmacy lab will help them figure out why things operate the way they do, why it’s balanced, not just the how.”

Photo Courtesy Of SMART.