Chris Roth walked out of high school at 15 back in 1985 and spent the next four decades in Nevada’s skilled trades industry. In April 2026, he bought a stake in Quality Training Center, a 32-year-old Las Vegas trade school, betting that a condensed, employer-focused training model can help close a widening gap between what local contractors need and what schools are actually producing.
Roth is a contractor, business owner, entrepreneur, author and teacher, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He told the paper that every contractor he personally talks to is hiring, a claim that lines up with what Quality Training Center found when it consulted with primary contractors about workforce gaps in the region. The school, founded in 1994 and owned by Lonny Snowden, offers instruction in HVAC, commercial refrigeration and electrical work.
Roth and Snowden launched what the Review-Journal describes as the first dedicated business-to-business, contractor-centric program in Las Vegas. The new offering focuses on placement rates, retention rates and students’ billable performance rather than the accreditation numbers, enrollment figures and graduation rates that traditional trade schools tend to emphasize, per the same report.
A Hands-On Lab Built for Real Breakdowns
Quality Training Center runs a 600-square-foot simulated home skills lab in Las Vegas, complete with active electrical panels and HVAC units, so students troubleshoot conditions they will actually encounter on the job, according to a video the school posted on Facebook. Core HVAC and electrical instruction is condensed into 12-week courses, and the school serves as a certified testing site for the federal EPA Section 608 refrigerant license, a credential mandated under federal law for anyone who handles refrigerants…