Meet Charley Anderson at AirSync Electrical

The long way round to a licence

I didn't take a straight path into the trade.

I started in event production — the crew that walks into an empty room, turns it into a show, and pulls it back down at two in the morning. From there I moved into installing and repairing entertainment industry equipment. Both jobs taught me the same thing: how to fault-find under pressure, with people standing around waiting on you. That's not a skill you lose.

Somewhere in the middle of it, my brother-in-law and I set up a small sawmill. Milling your own timber gives you a very clear sense of what a proper job actually costs in hours — and how much time a shortcut really saves you, which is usually none.

I started my electrical apprenticeship later than most people do, working across domestic and mechanical services, before moving full time into mechanical services and BMS in the commercial space. That meant schools, hospitals, medical centres and commercial tenancies — mechanical services switchboards, chillers and cooling towers, air handling units, fan coil units, exhaust and smoke spill fans, variable speed drives, DDC controllers, sensors, actuators and control valves, and the point-to-point testing and commissioning that proves the system does what the drawings say it does. In a hospital plant room there's no such thing as near enough. Every point gets tested, and every point gets documented.

AirSync Electrical is where all of that landed. We still work in mechanical services, and we've specialised in EV charger installation — homes, workplaces and fleets — including load management, supply upgrades and networked chargers. It's the same work, honestly: a piece of equipment, a supply, a control system and a commissioning sheet. The commissioning discipline from a hospital plant room is exactly what a $2,000 charger on the side of your house deserves.

I'm based at Wheatsheaf and work the Daylesford, Hepburn, Castlemaine and Ballarat corridor. When I'm not on the tools I'm usually out with a metal detector chasing gold around the Daylesford goldfields, hangin out with my family or towing the camper somewhere a long way from a powerpoint.