Teaching Portfolio
Mike Kapin · Program Coordinator & Professor · Self-taught AI builder · 20+ years in the trade
I've been the apprentice, the licensed technician, the business owner, the coordinator, and the developer. I teach from every side of the work.
I came to teaching the long way, and that's the point.
Electronics first, then a decade in the auto industry, then a trade, HVAC, that I learned in the field years before I ever taught it. I built and ran a heating and cooling business for eleven years. In 2017 I started teaching at Fanshawe College. By 2020 I was coordinating the program.
Somewhere in there I taught myself to build software. Not toy projects: production tools, AI systems, and automation that quietly runs a business in the background. I'm a tradesperson who discovered that debugging a furnace, designing a course, and architecting code are the same act of thinking. Systems are systems.
That's what I bring to a program: range that's actually connected. Deep trade expertise, a decade of curriculum and classroom craft, and a working fluency in AI and software that most educators are still reading about. I don't teach technology from the outside. I build it.
What I bring
Most educators are deep in one column. The value is that these reinforce each other: the trade informs the teaching, the teaching informs the tools, the tools keep the trade current.
Twenty-plus years in residential and light-commercial HVAC. TSSA G2 and G3 licensed, ODP-certified, and still current. I haven't left the field.
I design curriculum: course sequences, assessments, and hands-on lab work, grounded in UDL and learner-centred design through the College Educator Development Program.
Self-taught, and shipping. I build production AI tools, a suite of 15+ Model Context Protocol servers, and automation pipelines: working systems I use daily, not slideware about AI.
Two HVAC businesses and eleven years as an owner-operator. My current company's intake, booking, and invoicing are automated end to end. The trade keeps my teaching honest.
Teaching philosophy
Credibility in the trades is earned in the field first. Everything else follows from that.
The best teachers are the ones who've done the work. I don't teach from a manual I've only read. I teach from systems I've installed, businesses I've run, and code I've shipped. When a student asks what actually happens on the job, I've been there.
Learning happens by doing, in order: understand the theory, watch it demonstrated, practice it under supervision, then prove it. The apprenticeship loop (observe, practice, feedback, repeat) is ancient and irreplaceable. No technology changes it.
I also believe struggle is where learning lives. The job of a good tool, AI included, is to give students more reps and safer reps, not to let them skip the productive discomfort that competence is made of.
On AI in the classroom my position is simple: the students are already using these tools. The question isn't whether to allow them. That's been decided by the devices in their pockets. It's whether we teach them to use them well, or leave them to inherit bad habits on their own. I lean toward teaching.
Pedagogical foundation
Two decades in the field gave me the craft. The College Educator Development Program (a three-phase program spanning three years across five Ontario colleges) gave me the framework. I completed the full 2022–2024 cohort.
The path here
Electronics to automotive to the trade to the classroom to code. Each move added a layer the next one used.
1996–1997
Electronics Engineering Technology, Sheridan College
The technical foundation: systems, components, and control logic.
1997–2008
Automotive industry
A decade in the field and into middle management, through cycle after cycle.
2008
Ontario Small Business Certificate
Laid off in the crash, I retrained for the trade that always pulled at me.
2009–2011
HRAC, Fanshawe College
Honours graduate and recipient of the top academic achievement award.
2011
Ontario Skills Competition
2nd place, HVAC: provincial competition.
2011–2022
Founder, Mike's Heating and Home Comfort
Built it and ran it for eleven years.
2017
Professor, Fanshawe College
Began teaching part-time, alongside the business.
2020
Program Coordinator, Skilled Trades
Took on coordination of the program.
2022–2024
College Educator Development Program
Completed the full three-phase, three-year faculty cohort.
2023 →
Self-taught software & AI
Began building production tools with AI as a collaborator.
2026
Founder, ServiceFirst HVAC Solutions
Founded it and automated the operation end to end.
Educational technology & AI
Not hype, not fear. Just: what does this tool do well, and does this moment call for it?
For my College Educator Development Program project I ran a controlled experiment: I built the same trades lesson three ways: an AI avatar video, an AI-generated interactive deck, and interactive H5P modules, then compared instructor effort, quality, and student engagement across all three. The point wasn't novelty. It was evidence: which tools actually earn their place in a course, and which only look impressive.
I don't just evaluate these tools. I build with them. I design AI-assisted workflows for developing and quality-checking learning material, and I prototype the kind of reference and practice tools a trade actually needs. That hands-on side keeps my read on AI in education honest: I assess these tools as someone who builds them, not as a spectator.
Selected work
Production software, not prototypes. A sample of the range. Field tools, full platforms, teaching technology.
Full-stack platform
A complete booking, dispatch, and invoicing system for my HVAC business: Cloudflare Pages, Workers, and D1; an owner PWA with quotes, invoices, and reports; and an AI call-routing pipeline that turns a voicemail into a booked job card.
Visit site →Field tool · PWA
An offline-first app for licensed gas technicians: search by keyword or describe the problem in plain language, and it returns the right CSA B149 clause. Each result is written in plain terms and expands to explain why the code requires it. Built for the service truck, not the desk.
Open app →Consumer apps
Three live apps (DrawEdge, HuntersEdge, and AnglersEdge) on a shared Cloudflare backend: Ontario draw odds and hunting and fishing regulations across 22,000+ lakes and 180 management units. Completely free for everyone.
Open app →On-device PWA
A quoting and invoicing app for independent contractors, fully on-device with opt-in zero-knowledge encrypted sync. Customer data never leaves the user's control. Privacy built into the architecture, not bolted on.
Open app →Multi-tenant PWA
A shared co-parenting calendar with events, tasks, and granular per-category visibility for extended family. Magic-link auth and push notifications on a Cloudflare D1 and KV backend. Built start to finish in a single overnight session.
Open app →Reflection & communication
A daily check-in app: reflection prompts, a mood log, and a small library of evidence-based communication tools. Fully on-device, no accounts, no tracking. Built for becoming a calmer, more intentional version of yourself.
Open app →Authored work · Book
A self-published, step-by-step build guide for non-coders: about 150 pages that take you from idea to working app, with copy-and-paste prompts and working files included. The same approach I used to teach myself, written down so someone else can follow it.
View the book →Credentials & recognition
Writing
I write about AI, building, and the work of teaching a trade.
July 1, 2026
People kept asking how a tradesman ended up building his own software with AI. The answer didn't fit in a DM, so I wrote the whole thing down. It's called Systems Are Systems.
June 15, 2026
People assume I left the trade for the classroom. I never really left, and this year I built a business quiet enough to prove it.
May 1, 2026
On a missed diagnosis, a body that finally gave out, and the case for not taking “normal” for an answer.
April 17, 2026
Why the future of HVAC training isn't choosing between hands-on craft and digital tools, but learning when each belongs.
April 16, 2026
On hobby code, AI as a collaborator, and the case for building things that solve exactly one problem.
March 15, 2026
The fear that automation means fewer roles gets the math backwards. Here's what usually happens instead.
February 15, 2026
On the operational context that lives in people's heads and why the businesses that ignore it get surprised.
January 15, 2026
Why speeding up the wrong part of a workflow makes everything worse, and what to fix first.
Contact
Open to teaching, coordination, and curriculum roles, and to conversations about AI in trades education.