A lifetime of service: Steve Schmidt receives ACCA’s 2026 Distinguished Service Award
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Steve Schmidt has been in the HVAC business long enough to know that the work contractors do every day only happens well when the industry around it is functioning. The service calls, installs, customer relationships — none of it runs smoothly when the conditions around the trade are broken. That’s the logic behind 30-plus years of involvement with ACCA, starting from when he founded Frederick Air in 1992.
“For my business to succeed, the industry must be healthy and growing,” Schmidt says. “It’s mutually beneficial for me to continue serving.”
That framing has defined his approach from the beginning. He didn’t get involved in ACCA because someone asked him to fill a seat. He saw problems he thought he could help solve and kept showing up after that. Over the years, he’s served as a board member, on the Executive Committee, as Board Chair, and on the Partners Committee long after his formal leadership terms ended.
But Schmidt is quick to push back on the idea that the visible roles are where the real work happens.
“Just because a leadership role is visible does not necessarily mean it is effective or crucial,” he says. “When real work needs to be done, it often results from hours of research and concentrated thought to solve a problem that may not even be apparent to most.”
That distinction matters when you look at 2018, when Schmidt and a small group of Executive Committee members made a set of decisions that were, by his own description, difficult and consequential. “I realized that for our association to continue to thrive in the coming years, some real and fundamental changes needed to occur,” he says.
He’s careful not to take individual credit. He names the people around him — Eric Knaak, Wade Mayfield, Dan Weis, Lanny Huffman, Don Langston — and says the award means little to him if their contributions aren’t acknowledged alongside his. “Without the help of that Executive Committee, our association may not be positioned for maximum potential and success.”
After his term as chair ended, Schmidt’s involvement shifted rather than slowed. He’s stayed active on the ACCA Partners Committee because industry partner support is, as he puts it, the “lifeblood” of ACCA’s ability to operate. He keeps attending conferences for the hallway conversations and meals, the informal moments where the next generation of contractors figures out who they are and what they’re building toward.
“It’s basically a lifestyle,” he says of service. “When I see someone or something that needs help or could benefit my team or the industry, I tend to jump right in.”
Ask Schmidt what concerns him most about the industry’s future, and he doesn’t hesitate: workforce. Qualified technicians are already hard to find, and federal policy has spent decades funneling students toward four-year universities while career and technical education goes underfunded. ACCA has made leveling that playing field its top legislative priority for 2025-26, pushing for federal support of CTE programs and the in-house training programs that contractors depend on. Schmidt has watched the shortage worsen long enough to know the stakes. “No matter how good our products and services are, lacking the qualified workforce to perform the work means we cannot serve our customers,” he says. The response from the broader industry still isn’t proportionate to the problem.
ACCA’s Distinguished Service Award recognizes volunteers doing sustained, serious work in service of an industry most people outside it never think about. Schmidt fits that description, but he’d probably push back on any framing that made him sound like a selfless hero. His view is more grounded than that: the industry gave him a livelihood and a career, and investing back into it was never really optional.
“Performing any sort of service for ACCA or the industry is an honor and a privilege,” he says. “I did not start my business or place myself in a position to have available time simply to serve my own needs.”
Schmidt has spent more than 30 years showing up for this industry — committee meetings, conference tables, hard votes, and everything in between. He’s not done yet.
ACCA members can read this article and more in the Spring 2026 edition of ACCA Now Magazine online.
Posted In: ACCA Now
