How did Dan Dearden end up as the country's top technician? He tried a novel approach - he listened to his father.

Dearden was crowned the champion at this year's North American Technician Excellence (NATE) Certified Technician competition, which was held at HVAC COMFORTECH 2004 in St. Louis.

"My dad kind of figured I wasn't really a college candidate, because I wasn't too thrilled with school," Dearden says. "But he knew I was mechanically inclined."

Taking his father's advice to check out the heating and air conditioning field, Dearden embarked on a career that has spanned nearly 30 years.

After starting out on the bottom rung as a furnace cleaner ("I liked that job so much that I decided I'd better get a real job," Dearden says), he landed a position as a residential installation tech in 1977. Since then he has worked at a variety of residential and commercial companies, and, along the way, earned a two-year HVAC degree from Utah Valley State College.