Officials at Utah Valley University say they aren't leaving their roots behind in their new university mission, but finding places to study trades is getting harder as UVU cuts classes.

UVU has dropped trade programs such as welding and heating, ventilation and air conditioning, and applied technology colleges are only picking up some of the slack, leaving students and employers out in the cold.

Dean Gunther, who runs Gunther's Comfort Air in American Fork, said he can't find technicians with training now that UVU has dropped its program in air conditioning and refrigeration.

Gunther said he has to train new employees on the job while waiting for them to complete an apprenticeship program. He said that method isn't creating a workforce as well-prepared as before.

"They don't get the quality of training that we got out of UVSC," Gunther said.

Educators say a lack of interest and lack of resources makes certain trade programs hard to come by.

"We haven't started a cohort in electronics and computer technology for three years and it has been two years since our last cohort in welding or heating, ventilation and air conditioning. All three of these programs are not offered anymore because student enrollment dropped to a level where the programs could not be sustained," said Ernest Carey, dean of the College of Technology and Computing at UVU, in an e-mail.

Barry Hallsted, chairman of the construction technologies department at UVU, said UVSC's HVAC program was once booming with 240 students and 11 faculty.

"It was a fabulous program," Hallsted said.

The problem came when students weren't sticking around to finish their degrees. Six months of training can be sufficient to get a job, so students were leaving.

"The program was so good that it kind of cannibalized itself," Hallsted said.

Now, UVU offers a 40-credit, four-year apprenticeship program in conjunction with Mountainland Applied Technology College. Students work full time and take classes at night.

But UVU apprenticeship coordinator Dale Olson said the program is shifting away from UVU toward MATC. Recently, school officials announced that UVU would no longer be accepting credit for first-year apprenticeship courses. Students at UVU and MATC take the same classes, but students who paid UVU tuition would get credit at UVU.

Now, anyone who wants to sign up must do it through the applied technology school. Olson said the trend could continue into the second year, but nothing has been announced. UVU does, however, accept up to 16 credits of experiential course work. That way the courses will transfer from MATC to UVU.

Classes in welding, another program cut by the school, are offered at MATC, but not to the extent they used to be at UVSC. Salt Lake Community College also offers courses in both welding and HVAC.

MATC marketing director Mark Middlebrook said the school can only offer so many courses because resources only go so far.

"We're limited ... because of our facilities and funding," Middlebrook said.

He said MATC is hoping for state funding that will allow the school, which just lost some of its office space to UVU, to keep growing.

With all the programs that have been cut or moved into the applied technology school realm, some are worried that UVU has abandoned the trades all together. Hallsted said things are changing, but that doesn't constitute abandonment.

"We're absolutely not abandoning the trades, what we're doing, we're elevating the trades," he said.

By elevating, Hallsted said he means UVU is giving students the skills they need to be more than machine operators -- managers and business owners.

"We still embrace the trades, we're just training at a different level. It's actually wonderful," Hallsted said.

• Brittani Lusk can be reached at 344-2549 or at blusk@heraldextra.com.