Daniel Moscatiello

Daniel J Moscatiello is a General Partner, Trustee, and Chief Operating Officer of a portfolio of independent businesses. After attending Burlington County Community College, Daniel transitioned into the business landscape and took advantage of various job opportunities to advance his career. From 1999 to 2017, Daniel took on several roles in power plant operations and management before shifting his focus to commercial boiler and refrigeration career development training and operations services.

In his current role, Daniel manages over one-hundred employees and provides various services and education programs across the state of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. He is the third-generation owner of Training Center, Training Center Group, and Training Center Institute, all of which focus on power generation, heating and cooling equipment operation and maintenance, and training. He remains in North Hanover Township to be close to his family and the business office.

Where did the idea for your career come from?

The idea came from my father, John Moscatiello, who had a master’s degree in education from College of New Jersey. He was a high-school teacher and worked in the field of operations when he was not teaching. Having two jobs while I was growing up was tough, but he was a really hard worker. He was inspired to run his own school because he found and identified the needs of individuals entering the field to help build their careers and have an easier time with the licensing process. That was part of the inspiration behind the name of the company. We’re able to provide training and solutions in different fields while staying in our lane with boilers, refrigeration, power generation, and related technology.

What does your typical day look like and how do you make it productive?

I spend a lot of time talking to clients and students, building on our network, delivering course content through live classes, and constantly improving the programs and products we deliver to our students and clients. I also spend a lot of time on the road, going to the sites and delivering instruction in person.

How do you bring ideas to life?

Storytelling. We like to storyboard any concepts or ideas in our training programs that we have, so that we can build a roadmap for the training objectives. When you start with a blank slate and storyboard that idea the way that you envision it, you have a starting script for training, and you can go from there to final development. That is obviously specific to education that is a big focus of our business. Bringing ideas to life in our service division, that is all about working with talented people and letting them bring out solutions to the client’s problems. Utilizing our combined experience and team resources we feel like we can build a team to operate and service any client.

What’s one trend that excites you?

Career development training and alternative education. There are a lot of individuals who can participate in craft training that would allow them to immediately get out and make good compensation without having to make a massive investment into higher education. If you have the means for that kind of investment, then do so, but I think there are a lot of gaps in the workforce that can be filled with talented individuals that don’t have to spend so much money. There are a lot of programs and apprenticeships out there that will allow you to build a career with a small investment.

What is one habit of yours that makes you more productive as an entrepreneur?

We apply what we call “the student mentality” or TSM within our company. It’s a concept that we created in our program that essentially is staying in a constant mindset of a student and building positive habits in your work and home life. Establish habits and you never miss two days in a row, never miss twice. It is all about building habits that drive self-improvement. The key habit you must do is to continuously improve on yourself and the best way to do that is to measure yourself against yourself every day. Be better than who you were yesterday and continue improving.

What advice would you give your younger self?

Be patient. Rome was not built in a day. Be patient with your work, your life, and your relationships. You don’t have to rush.

Tell us something that’s true that almost nobody agrees with you on.

I am passionate about energy generation, distribution, and transmission and how the electrical grid could be transformed to combat climate change and still provide energy needs for residences, commercial facilities, really everything that consumes electricity. If there’s a real focus on infrastructure and addressing it on a state-by-state level, I think you can get significantly more progress than what we’ve had historically. It seems like when we talk about this stuff, it’s always an all or nothing discussion, but if you make the right effort around engineering and design, you can create different solutions for different areas that are sustainable. The key focus is nuclear and renewable energy sources in micro-grid formats coupled with energy storage. It is not something that can be done tomorrow, it takes a ton of hardware and software to really advance to sustainable energy generation and consumption, but it is possible over time. This is something that I am really passionate about.

As an entrepreneur, what is the one thing you do over and over and recommend everyone else do?

Focus on your soft skills and treat people how you want to be treated. That goes a long way. TSM!

What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business?

We build on our network by always doing the right thing for the students and listening to their needs. As we’re taking them through the student journey of our programs, we’re also helping them with everything else they’re doing along the way. What that does is help individuals get passionate about what they’re part of and it comes back when they go out and start their career and tell others about the program. It makes a big difference in helping the business grow organically.

What is one failure you had as an entrepreneur, and how did you overcome it?

Success is both your accomplishments and your failures. A lot of times, the failures I’ve experienced were picking the wrong solution for a problem. When that happens, you reset, regroup, and find the right solution, then worry about the path going forward.

What is one business idea that you’re willing to give away to our readers?

There is a lot of opportunity in monetizing YouTube channels with large followings or help channels expand their subscribers and ad revenues base. Alternatively, someone could start a channel about something they’re passionate about and build off the business once they have a good following.

What is the best $100 you recently spent? What and why?

I bought those Apple AirPods for a little more than $100 and they are just awesome. They immediately sync up with your phone seamlessly and they have amazing noise cancellation. When you’re on the phone with people, the audio quality is great.

What is one piece of software or a web service that helps you be productive?

Google Drive Suite has really transformed the way we work within our business. We used to use the Microsoft Suite products, but Google Drive allows for so much sharing of documents and collaboration off of a sheet, presentation, or document. It’s been really great for simplicity and control of access within our organization. It’s a subtle thing, but it’s made a big impact. We also use Zoom to run our courses over various programs and it’s brought some simplicity to certain aspects of the way we work.

What is the one book that you recommend our community should read and why?

21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Harari. It’s the sort of book where you read a chapter, then sit back and reflect on it and think about what the future might look like. It’s also educational because it takes you through recent history and it does a great job at letting you think about the direction we’re going based on that. I wish more people within my circle would have read it because I would love to engage in some dialogue around some of the subjects. It is thought provoking and a good read.

What is your favorite quote?

My brother used to say “attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity”. I always thought that was really sweet and special and it just stuck with me.

Key Learnings:

• Focus on daily self-improvement
• Failure is a building block to success
• Enjoys North Hanover Township due to feeling like there is enough space and not having the exhausting feeling of being around people all the time