Serious Commitments

We recognize an ASHI employee for his service—to the military and to a lifetime of learning.

November 1, 2021

Education is a big deal for Jazz Schools. The 30-year-old joined ASHI in March 2021 as education administrator, but it’s his time in the military that ignited his love of learning and brought him to where he is today.

“It sparked something in me,” he said. “And I was able to get my bachelor’s degree and a master’s in the military. Ever since then, I just never wanted to stop learning. My end goal is one day to end up getting my PhD.”

Schools grew up in Washington, DC before joining the US Air Force after high school. His first job in the military was nothing short of intense; he worked in aircraft fuel systems maintenance. “I crawled inside of aircraft fuel tanks and fixed things,” he said.
For six years Schools was in that role, before going on to teach aircraft fuel systems maintenance in the military for several more years. Working on aircraft is high stakes, and his experience taught him not to be afraid to ask questions, and to study, learn, and pay attention to detail.

“In the military if you don’t know something, you have to figure it out. There’s not really another option,” he said. “The difference between me saying a jet can fly and it can’t has repercussions down the line.”

The experience taught him discipline, hard work, focus, and endurance, to say the least. “I spent my entire 20s in the military,” Schools said. “It taught me a lot. I definitely don’t make a lot of excuses for anything. And it would take a lot for me to quit something.”

When Schools was considering his next move after the military, he thought not about inspecting aircraft, but about home inspection. At the time he was moving from Phoenix to just outside of Atlanta.

After purchasing their new home, Schools headed to Georgia to get the house ready for his wife and young daughter. “I moved in first because I wanted to clean and do stuff like that. I didn’t have any hot water, and nowhere in my home inspection report did it say anything about my hot water heater,” he recalled. “Then I started looking and Georgia is not a licensed home inspector state. So that got my gears turning. I was like, imagine if I could have done this myself, if I could have inspected my own home.”

While Schools isn’t currently studying to be a home inspector, he has a deep respect for the profession, and his home-buying experience led him to find ASHI. Here he does everything from provide support to ASHI chapters with events to ensuring state continuing education is up-to-date. Most recently he’s been working on ASHI Edge, a new learning management system (LMS). The online platform launches this fall and will make it even easier for inspectors to complete their online continuing education. “The changes are exciting, especially our new LMS,” he said. “I’m very excited that I can be hands-on with the course creation side of it.”

Schools has worked with the instructional designers as well as engineers to get that LMS up and running. “I’ve looked forward to being able to learn from them, because I’m not an instructional designer, but it’s definitely interesting to learn from them and see the process,” he said.

Prior to this role managing LMS training plans and education unit certification projects, School worked as a training coordinator for Chris 180—a nonprofit in the Atlanta area that provides housing, counseling, and addiction treatment for traumatized youth. Today he trains home inspectors instead of counselors, therapists, and social workers. It’s fulfilling in a different way.

“It’s definitely a tight-knit community,” he said of ASHI. “Sometimes I’ll call a home inspector or they’ll call me, and they’re great storytellers. Occasionally I’ll end up talking to an inspector who’s a veteran, too. They’re all great people, so I’m just glad I get to help them.”

Education is big for the Schools family in general—no pun intended. Schools’ wife also values education and works as a sixth grade teacher. Schools himself has a bachelor’s degree from Southern New Hampshire University and a master’s from Liberty University, both in business.

Talking to people, helping them learn, and continuing to learn himself is all part of the joy of his new role, Schools said. “Home inspectors need the continuing education; it’s vital to their livelihood,” he said. “Certain states require these inspectors to have X amount of hours of continuing education and without it, they can’t renew their license. And if they can’t renew their license, they can’t work.”


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