Customer Stories

A quick story about Mike Holt " Somewhere around 2010 my brother Frank started a program for returning veterans teaching them a skill-set in the construction industry. I was tasked with sharing whatever insight I could on the electrical end, I was more than happy to assist. I contacted Mike Holt and requested a discount on the pricing of booklets and brochures, any items I could get my hands on to help me with this project. My training was for four days, basic wiring and circuiting. There isn't much you can do in four days, but I gave it my best. In a nutshell, Mike Holt shipped three huge cartons of books, brochures, guides and pamphlets FREE of any charges. Not only did it make the program a success, but it eased the burden on me as well for lodging and food up in Binghamton, NY. Mike Holt is a class act! I am forever grateful.

-Electrical Contractor, New York

I love you all, and appreciate the work you do. Mike's words mean a lot and for that I thank him for being an absolutely great mentor. I am forever blessed & grateful for the impact that your team and Mike has had on my life and career. I received a flyer last week on your upcoming Summer CEU Seminars, I really need to get back in the groove. I miss you all!! With sincere gratitude and love.

God Bless  🎚

I Absolutely love your educational materials. For a better understanding of the NFPA 70, these books are invaluable. Thank you for all the years of dedication to the trade!

I have used your products for years. 3 years ago I bought your book and DVDs to help in passing my Masters License Exam. I passed the first time with a very high score.

Hi Mike & Crew,
I would like to take a moment and THANK-YOU for what you do. I have been a master electrician for 23 yrs. Well, last year I decided to become an electrical instructor at the vocational school where I work as an in-house electrician. I knew I would have to hit the books hard to pass the teacher's exam, so I ordered about a half dozen books to help me (yours being one of them). Well as I started looking through them all, one by one I put them away and kept going back to yours - it was and is The Best. I passed the written part of the exam with a 91, but I did not stop there. Your books encouraged me to go ahead and take the master exam in the state next to my state(RI), which I also passed, all thanks to you and your people doing such a GREAT JOB!! Thanks Again ( Keep up the great work).
Thanks

P.S. I knew I had the right book when I saw who it was dedicated to. God
Bless, and Peace be with you!!     

I have studied your courses and went to a couple of your seminars many years back that helped me pass my masters license. Now I am getting, when I can afford it, more of your books for the journeyman electrician to help my son pass his test. I have never been disappointed in any of the material I have received and with the easy way you put the books together. I am very hopeful he will pass his test and follow in my footsteps. I am not rich by any means, but the electrical industry has given me and my wife, a comfortable living for many years and now I'm getting to retire come January 31st. Thanks for all you have done Mr. Holt and keep up the good work. 

My life, as an Electrician:
Upon my exit from the U.S. Air Force, I found myself basically without a job. Some thought, time and energy and thought was put into pre-college courses. But I still remained let's say with no focused career path. Fortunately a break came in the way of a great opportunity to interview for a local major manufacturing plant. This was the place that started me toward becoming an electrician. Not only did this provide me with a good income for my family, I received technical training for instrumentation. While at the same facility was part of a site wide electrical training program, which encouraged me to become a journeyman electrician.

After a very fulfilling 30 years of service and experience I took an early retirement. In July of 2006 I began vigorously pursuing to open my own electrical contractor's business. 
All that stood in the pathway was the "Master electrician license". I proceeded to begin the task of studying and preparing for the test. Each time I took the exam and failed sometimes by just a few points. I began to doubt that this feat was feasible for me, that's when I found mikeholt.com. After I had made my purchase of a couple of books and DVDs Mike's staff called me and set me up with the material that I "really" needed to become successful. The rest was up to me. For almost two weeks and eight to ten hours a day, I watched and read each lesson. The discussions in the program kept my interest thru out the entire series. On the next scheduled exam I overwhelmingly passed!

I now run a small electrical contracting service  which would not have been possible without all of the support of my family, friends and the program from Mike Holt. 

In the spring of 2004 I found out my boss was going to retire, so I decided to try for my license. I ordered some videos from Mike Holt and I watched them over and over and it really got me to open up the code book and know where everything was. I did a lot of studying and a lot of praying and in the fall I took my exam and passed with flying colors. Since I have started my business and for 5 years now have been busy as can be thank the Lord. I am not saying it has not been stressful but I would not trade this in for another job.
Thanks for your help Mike Holt and and for answering my prayers Jesus.
, BNL Electric

I will introduce myself: my name is . I started young in my teens in construction hard labor coming from a very poor family. My dad could not provide more education than high school. I started to work very young in concrete then I worked in manufacturing of mobile homes as roof top builder, I worked in rough electrical. I was introduced by friends into the world of electricians where my interest in electrical books began. When I became a quality control inspector in my early 30's testing all electrical components and installations over the years searching on the computer I found this unique website that has given me so much knowledge - it is the best WWW. MIKE HOLT.COM nobody told me about it - it was the Lords guidance.amen. Over the years I have become a certified home inspector and a ICC certified Residential Electrical Inspector and continue to learn more from the masters who share info and discuss electrical topics at this website. I  still work as an inspector for manufactured school and commercial buildings; my objective would be to become a master like Mike although I started late. Today in my mid 40's I say it is never late to learn and make an impact learn from the Best. 
God Bless you Mike Holt...
Jose

Blessings come in all shapes, sizes and forms. I said a little prayer for more reference books and my prayers were answered. 

We have an eight seat, sand tent, where we bring in outside Iraqi electrical workers, contractors, SEW workers, and Military electrical teams and give them a basic run down of Grounding and Bonding and put out questions from the 2005 Code Exam books that were sent by Mike in the beginning when Task Force SAFE started this mission with Jim Childs. Words cannot express our gratitude and appreciation for your encouragement. 

The support for our mission from Mike and everyone at Mike Holt Enterprises has been instrumental in helping us accomplish our original mission. Saving Lives and making the infrastructure safer for all parties was that original mission. We are doing that with each passing day. We are so happy for all your support and speaking for all of us here at Task Force SAFE, Thank You.
Respectfully,

Richard Aliff
Task Force SAFE

Dear Mike,
I have been a student/seminar attendee for 33 years. Because of you, I have achieved more than I originally dreamed of when I started in business on May 1st, 1973. Over the years I have mimicked your approach to our trade with the employees we have had. I firmly believe this trade requires more skill and mental acuity than any other trade. Unfortunately, many of my fellow contractors do not treat their employees the same, thinking of them as strictly tools, to work until no longer needed.  

The need for education in our industry is essential to the industry's continuance. For myself, I never felt more proud than when an employee graduated apprenticeship school/training and later went on to become a journeyman/master.

Thanks for the years of substantial training and my continued success.


American Lighting Maintenance

Hi; My name is .  Like many of you who are reading this I am a retired electrician.  I started working in the trade in 1968 when I was 19 years old.  Oh my, those were the good old days.  I was very fortunate that as an apprentice I had very good instructors and I worked with many journeymen that were interested in teaching me the trade.  I also took many classes later on that were given by our local union on safety, high voltage termination and control circuitry.  I feel however that a very important part of my education was the part that I received in the field.  I don't believe there was even one electrician, man or woman that I worked with that did not teach me something.  A few of them I was able to thank for their effort.

I was also able to give back a lot of the knowledge that others had passed on to me.  A couple of years ago man approached me and said "Ed, how are you doing?"  As it turned out he was an apprentice I had worked with about 15 years earlier.  When he told me his name I totally remembered him.  Well, he went on to say this- "Do you remember when we were working on that pipe rack?  (The pipe rack was about 30 feet off the ground)  You told me how to use the safety belt with two lanyards attached to it.  Then you said to me- Go ahead, you can do it.  You really made a difference.  Thanks."  I tell you my eyes started to fill with water.  I had given back something that I had received.

After 36 years in the trade I had back problems and pain in several of my joints.  Let's face it, when you physically give a lot it is going to cost you something.  I had back surgery and my doctor recommended that I take my retirement if it was at all possible when I was 55.  Little did I know the impact it would have when I no longer worked in the trade.  I had talked with a few retirees at meetings and at social functions and they all in some way expressed that they missed doing electrical work.  I didn't really understand, or relate to what they were saying.  Hey, it was a job.  When I did take my retirement - all the pieces fell into place.  

I have so many good memories of the work and the people I worked with.  Running the pipe, pulling the wire and making all of the connections, there are a lot of different aspects to one project.  Then the big payoff comes when you throw on the power, push the buttons and watch a machine or a building come to life.  There is no way of describing how that feels, or at least the memory of how that felt.  With the physical condition I am in now, I know I will never be able to return to the trade.  The memories discussed in this paper are but a few of the things I miss.  For me, there is no other job, position, or employment that could ever replace doing electrical work.  Yes, I truly understand what those old timers (I'm one of them now) were talking about when they inferred or said outright that they missed working in the trade.  No, it isn't just a job.  It is a way of life.  It is an occupation quite unlike any other.  

One small crumb of advice I would like to leave with you is this.  At the end of each day, walk through your work area and look at what you accomplished.  The pipe you ran or the machine that is in operation or the lighting that you hung, admire your own accomplishments.  Then understand what you feel in your heart.  Yes we all need a paycheck, but that feeling of accomplishment will keep you coming back for more.  

It was Winston Churchill that said- "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."

Electricity itself is a scary thing if you stop and think about it.  The thought of something that you can't see that could kill you before you even know what hit you is very unsettling to most.  But to the men and women of our trade, the thrill of turning on that Main switch overshadows the fear of what we can't see.

I broke into the business in 1980, pulling BX out of a fire remodel at a bowling alley in Baltimore, MD.  This little taste of the trade was all I needed to know this was what I wanted to do with my career.  As many young people starting out in the business, I attended a 4-year apprenticeship program, graduating from it in 1986.  After 10 winters working in the cold, I decided to move to sunny Florida in 1992.  I passed the Block and Associates Journeyman's exam in 1993 and then passed the Block and Associates Registered Masters exam in 1998.  Due to a lot of out-of-town work and the procrastination some of us have, I never registered my results with the state and after five years was no longer eligible to register.

In October of 2003, while on a jobsite, I noticed several specs or floaters in my left eye.  This would be the start of some major eye problems caused by complications of diabetes.  On April 15, 2004, my first retinal detachment was operated on  and was unsuccessful.  I've not seen anything out of my left eye since then.  I continued working in the field throughout that summer as a field superintendent/foreman, running and managing projects as I had for 10 years or so.  In October of 2004, my right eye started to have problems and on October 21, 2004 a retinal surgery attempting to repair a detachment in that eye was also unsuccessful.  A total of six operations to my left eye and four to my right eye all had basically the same result leaving me totally blind with only very minute amounts of light passing through my damaged eyes.

After being an electrician for close to 25 years and using my eyes every day as we all do, I was now faced with what seemed to be an insurmountable challenge.  The things we all take for granted like driving to work, reading a set of drawings, using a tape measure to lay something out, or even getting the right amount of cream in that last cup of coffee before you go to work was now something I had to figure out.  Like electricity to most, now what I couldn't see was a fear I had to deal with every day.  The dangers of basic life and uncertainty of my career direction flowed through my mind daily for the first few months.

Through all of my eye operations and treatments, my boss stood by me encouraging me to continue to grow and making a place for me as part of the office management team for an electrical contractor in Clewiston, FL.  I learned how to use a computer, which before I lost my sight, was a four letter word to me.  Starting at square one, I taught myself to type and learned the keys fairly quickly.  Now I use a screen reading software called JAWS, which basically reads anything on the screen using key stroke combinations to move the curser around the screen.  It took a lot of training but I've got a pretty good handle on it now and can navigate through most programs without too much trouble.  About a year and a half ago I purchased the 2005 NEC on CD-ROM and learned how to get around it fairly good as well.

Before I lost my sight, I had dreams of possibly going out on my own, opening an electrical contracting business of my own and continuing to grow naturally in the trade.  Well, needless to say, the circumstances with my eyes could now hamper the dreams.  But with the love and support of my family and friends, I decided to try to pursue some of those dreams anyway.

One of the toughest things about my situation is the fact that our trade is such a visual industry.  I remember joking with co-workers for years about the thought of a color-blind electrician.  The thought of that now seemed to pale in comparison to being a totally blind electrician.  The one advantage I had though was my many years of experience, my drive to always keep learning, and two things that God blessed me with.  The first is patience.  This is a must for anyone who is blind because you are always either waiting for a ride, learning a completely new way to read using a computer, and even trying not to tell yourself "if I could only see."  The second is the blessing of a wonderful memory.  My memory has always been good and made me very successful running work as a job foreman and field superintendent.  Unfortunately, when your sight goes, some of your memory does as well because the sight of different things will trigger your memory, but I'm working on this every day.

I contacted Mike Holt via E-mail late in February of 2007.  Wanting to pursue my dreams, I asked Mike if he thought he could help me obtain study guides to attempt to pass the Certified Unlimited Masters Electrician's Exam.  Because I can't just go buy a book and study it now, I wasn't sure if these study guides would help.  Mike's enthusiasm and energy encouraged me as well as his positive attitude toward my request.  His staff responded to my requests quick and to the point.  I received the DVD package as well as the NEC and Contractor's Reference Practice Exams in the mail within a couple of weeks.

As I said earlier, I just can't crack open the book and start cramming.  First, I had to take the books to a local print shop and have the bindings cut off of them.  Then with the help of my Mom, we scanned the pages individually on our scanners transferring the text on the pages to PDF and Word files on my computer that my JAWS could read to me.  The first two or three hundred pages that I scanned in Word were very difficult to navigate.  A lot of editing was necessary because of the way the scanner processed the pages.  After about a month though, we had transferred the books into something I could study.  I thanked God for my patience throughout this scanning period.

I applied for the July 6, 2007 technical exam to be held in Kissimmee, FL.  I decided that the best way for me to study was to rely on another God-given talent, my memory.  I listened to the DVDs every morning for the better part of five weeks prior to the exam.  These DVDs were not only very informative; they were sometimes funny and very interesting.  In the evenings, I would try to go over the practice exams and quizzes trying to memorize what I could, learning a lot.

As my exam date got near, the butterflies started to churn.  Because I would have to have a reader to read the questions to me then fill in the proper answer on the answer sheet, I felt working with someone would be beneficial.  But like all of us, I didn't want to tie anyone down having to read the practice exams and such to me, so I just continued to study as I had been.

The exam was a tough one.  I had had success in the 90s and was a good test taker when I could see, but this was nothing like those tests.  The State allowed me twice the allotted time as someone who could see and I needed every bit of it.  When I left the testing facility, I was unsure of my result and the proctors told me it could be up to a month before the results came out.  Two and a half weeks later, I was notified that I had passed this exam and I was ecstatic.  I then targeted the business portion of the exam.  Studying in the same manner, I set a date of August 29, 2007.  Again, I was allotted twice the time and again I used every second.  No waiting for the result this time though.  Two minutes after the exam was completed I had my result... I passed!

I continue to learn every day and hope my story can encourage the readers of this newsletter to always strive to learn something every day.  Education in our trade is so very important and I think the apprenticeship programs throughout the state and the country are vital to the trade.  Being book smart will not make you a good electrician.  But the combination of the experience of the field coupled with a solid foundation of education of the trade will make you a great electrician.  Never say never and always remember that whatever you may be going through, chances are there is someone worse off than you.

Knowledge is power.
Sincerely,