When I was 8 years old, my parents opened up a country store, the store was 50 feet in front of our home, in that store we sold everything from gas and groceries to hot pizza and bait.  When I was 9 my parents drafted me and I started my first fulltime job.  I would get home from school at 3:30 and work till 11:00 at night, on the weekends I would work from 7am-11pm, every day, every week until I was 18.  Though you could say that I missed out on a childhood.  What I learned from pumping gas and running a cash register at the age of 9 taught me many valuable lessons, including what it is like to be an entrepreneur and work for yourself.

 

When I was 18, I went to work outside the family business. I always found myself dissatisfied with working for other companies and I would judge them on what I felt that they did right and wrong.  Not being the owner did not allow me most times to change company policy to serve the customer better.  I spent  5 years working the restaurant industry, quickly moving up to to management levels.   I enrolled in AST (American School of Technology) in the early 90’s for HVAC, with a plan to be educated and work in the industry for 10 years.  During those 10 years I sought out good HVAC companies, and I worked for four of those quality HVAC companies.  I asked every question I could, I studied the business type and style of each company, I moved around to different positions within each company and I studied diligently on all personal technical certifications and motivational self help books.  I studied hard every day, every aspect of those businesses.  All  the while developing my own business model to satisfy my potential customers in a sincere, honest and efficient manner.

 

10 years to the day of being in the industry in May 2004, I opened up Fire & Ice Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc.  I started it with 1 small used pickup truck, a 10×10 storage unit and $1400.  Even though I had the opportunity, I took no customers from my previous employers.  I felt that would be dishonest, and that being dishonest in the beginning would set a bad precedent that I was not willing to continue, yet would haunt me.  I learned early on that the truth never hurt my business.  I would tell (and still do) my customers the truth whether it was popular or not.  It is a very big part of our company policy and culture to this day and always will be.

 

The word of mouth spread quickly, and I used 15-20 cents out of every dollar to advertise for the first 5 years.  We have grown at an average of 54% every year except one year when we had over 300% growth.  That much growth is dangerous if it is not planned for ahead of time.  My team now consists of 19 people besides myself.  Those 19 people are honest, caring people, and customer satisfaction truly is there #1 goal.  We maintain an A+ rating with the BBB and a straight A rating with Angie’s List.  No company is perfect.  How a company reacts to issues that do come up is what makes a good company or a bad company.

 

Although a childhood may have been missed, early work ethic, team leadership, and honest ethical work was instilled.  Fire & Ice has around 3000 wonderful customers.  If I could, I would let any potential customer talk to every single one of our current customers.  We always react, and we have nothing to hide because:  “Your Trust Is Our Business”