Craig Childress had quite the weekend last October as he competed in the 8th Annual Elite Trades Championship Series in Tampa Bay, Florida. In an atmosphere that looked more like an MMA event, Childress and two other finalists marched into a specially-built arena through lights and a fog machine, each contestant’s name booming over the PA to the crowd gathered inside the Tampa Bay Convention Center.

Cheering Childress on from the edge of crowd was Rachel, his wife of 15 years.

With a clock ticking away for the timed contest, Childress got to work installing a drain and DWV for a sink and then moved on to pipe a water heater. Childress was the only finalist to wrap up the work within the allotted time.

By the end of the first day, Childress had won the Plumbing National Championship. With a trophy and a $10,000 check in hand, he FaceTimed his 12-year-old daughter back home in Massachusetts and told her part of those winnings would go toward the puppy she’d wanted.

“Hearing her say she was proud of me was the highlight of the night,” Childress says.

There wasn’t too much time to savor the victory, however, since Childress was up early on Saturday to take part in the HVAC competition, this time up against 14 other HVAC techs.

“My mindset was, ‘My mom has no heat,’ ” he remembers thinking.

That mindset probably proves a winning attitude for any tradesperson heading out to such a call. Childress went to work installing a complete furnace and air conditioning system, including connecting refrigerant lines from the unit to an outdoor condenser.

At the end the HVAC competition, Childress took home his second trophy, plus another check, this time one for $40,000.

“Professionally, this is the most absurdly wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me,” he adds. “It’s been an unbelievable journey. These competitions were a great opportunity for all the competitors to go down and showcase what we all love doing every day.”

It was the first-time at the series that one competitor took home a double-win championship. In fact, last year’s competition was the first time plumbing was included and just the second year that HVAC was on the bill, too.

And if that wasn’t enough, both competitions were filmed and later shown on CBS Sports in December. Just as in other sports shows, the network had also followed the finalists around during their days to tell viewers their personal stories and provide national exposure for the skilled trades.

Elite Series

The Elite Series is a celebration of skill, expertise and commitment among America's best skilled trade pros, offering more than $300,000 in cash and sponsored prizes.  

The competitions were started by Ideal Industries, Sycamore, Illinois, a family-owned global manufacturer of tools and components for the trades, and Intersport, a Chicago-based marketing agency. The first competition began in 2016 and has since grown to include the IDEAL Electrical Championship; the U.S. Auto Tech National Championship, presented by Yokohama; the ServiceTitan HVAC National Championship; and the Plumbing National Championships, sponsored by SharkBite. 

In addition to the individual competitions, an ETCS Student & Apprentice Trades Educational Summit, facilitated by the International Electrotechnical Commission and the Florida PHCC welcomed more than 700 students to the event that encompasses educational sessions by industry leaders, networking opportunities and a chance to witness the competitions firsthand. 

Childress, 38, took a short break from his job at Boston University to head to Tampa. He’s worked at BU for the six years and is the lead worker in plumbing services at the university’s facilities management and operations department where he is in charge of a team of 26 people. 

“I enjoy working with my hands,” he adds. “Whether it’s plumbing, heating or cooling, if I’m working with my hands, I’m good. That’s my happy place.” 

A resident of Peabody, Massachusetts, Childress’ experience in the trades started in high school. 

“I took a lot of shop classes in high school, but really liked working with a torch in plumbing class,” Childress says. “I mean, what 14-year-old high school kid doesn’t like working with a flame to solder.” 

Childress went on to graduate from the plumbing program at the Northeast Metropolitan Regional Vocational High School, located in Wakefield, Mass. 

He began his skilled trades career in the New England area working as a plumber, but eventually picked up HVAC skills when a past employer sent to a two-week extensive training program for HVAC at a trade school in Little Rock, Arkansas. 

“I love learning, and I was excited about a new opportunity in HVAC,” he says. “And let’s face it: heating and cooling often follow plumbing.” 

Childress learned about the competition through Mack Schwert, his friend and former apprentice. The two worked closely together for several years before parting ways for other employment opportunities. Schwert, who almost didn’t compete since he was uncomfortable with the idea of the event being televised, won the inaugural ServiceTitan HVAC National Championship in 2022.  

“I didn’t know anything about it until I heard Mack had won,” Childress adds. “But I started looking into it a little bit and I figured I wanted to be part of it.” 

Road to Tampa 

His journey to Tampa began last April, when he and 9,000-plus others nationwide went online to take a qualifying quiz. 

“They’re just a series of questions about what I think is basic knowledge,” Childress says. For example, the HVAC test involved “technical questions about the refrigerant system, what tool you would use in a certain situation, or a troubleshooting question or maybe an installation question.” 

However, it is a timed test so techs needed to get as many right answers in the three minutes that they could. 

Childress passed round one and while he was waiting to take part in round two, he received an email from the organizers announcing the launch of the new plumbing competition. 

“Plumbing is right in my wheel house,” Childress says, “so, of course, I started in on that too.” 

That is, him and 1,500 other first-round contestants. (We couldn’t find out too much about the HVAC quiz, but we do know that the Florida PHCC developed the plumbing quiz.) 

For the round two, competitors received kits shipped to their homes that proved their hands-on skills. For the HVAC test, for example, he had to assemble an AC refrigerant system at home all while his wife filmed him completing the timed test. 

“It’s a couple of fittings, it’s a couple of pieces of pipe, it’s showing the basic knowledge of being able to do this process,” Childress says of the HVAC kit. “Every air conditioning technician should be able to do what I was able to do within that time frame, or give or take. This is kind of basic refrigeration.” 

Contest rules permitted no more than 20 minutes. He cinched it in 12. From there it was an all-expense-paid trip to Tampa for the finals. 

Accolades 

"It was unbelievable to be able to go down to Florida and be celebrated for working in the trades," Childress says.  

He’d flown to Tampa happy to just be in the finals. 

“If I went down and I did good, great,” he says. “If I went down and did bad, it was still going to be a great experience. Winning both the plumbing and HVAC competitions was beyond anything I had hoped for heading down to the competitions.” 

Other top finishers in the plumbing competition include David Shanor (2nd Place) and Joe Jaspers (3rd Place), and in the HVAC competition, Dagner Espinoza (2nd Place) and Lee Morris Jr. (3rd Place). 

Childress, who considers himself on the shy side, is a celebrity on the campus of BU. And while we didn’t have a chance to catch up with him, Childress was invited by RLS to take part in a pipe-joining contest at the company’s booth at the recent AHR Expo in Chicago. 

“Nothing is a direct result of winning, but I’ve had plenty of companies asked me about getting involved with them,” Childress. “We’ll see.” 

One thing he already can see is the wonder his 4-year-old son shows in the two huge trophies that are currently sitting on the family’s dining room table. 

“He pretends to be a plumber now,” Childress adds. “The whole competition has given our kids a great look on what I do for a living.”