Chapter 1

Things were going well was the thought Dan Carter had as he parked his car in the fenced lot at his HVAC business. This area by the university in northern California was a growing area and that was a major factor contributing to the business’s success. Dan was thirty-two years old and he was the owner of this business. His ownership came about tragically because his father who started the business suffered a massive heart attack and passed away six years after Dan finished high school.

Dan’s parents divorced when he was eighteen years of age. Dan’s mother was a nurse and she became involved with a Doctor. She moved in with this doctor and later moved with him when he decided to join a medical practice in Sacramento, California. She didn’t want any part of the HVAC business and apparently, that also included Dan. What she wanted was seventy-five percent of the joint investment and banking account. Dan’s Dad agreed to this split since the business was worth considerably more. Dan knew his parents weren’t getting along for a while but he didn’t think it was at the stage where they would divorce.

Dan had taken after his father in that he had no strong desire in going to college. His interest was in learning the HVAC business, both as to him being a trained technician and in managing a profitable business. Dan’s father took Dan under his wing and said he would do what he could to train him but it would boil down to Dan extending the effort needed on his part for that to happen.

To that end, his father enrolled Dan in a two-year HVAC-R program that resulted in him earning an Associates of Science degree. Upon completion of that program, Dan was assigned to work alongside experienced technicians. At the end of four years working with these technicians, Dan had his EPA Universal refrigerant handling certificate as well as a Class C 20 Contractors license. Couple that training with working with Helen Boyd, the office manager, gave Dan the knowledge required to manage and operate an HVAC business. He needed all this training and experience to take over and run the business when his father suddenly passed away.

Despite his youth, Dan was gifted with a good business sense. In the years of him now running the business, he had substantially increased the scope of its operation and its profitability. This was accomplished in a few ways. This was done by treating the customer with respect and charging a fair dollar for the services rendered. Doing this he thought besides being the right thing to do would help the business to grow through the customer’s word of mouth that they were treated fairly and honestly. He also went out of his way to establish a relationship with Bridgeman Construction. They became satisfied with his quality of work and started using him as their sole subcontractor on their building projects that required HVAC work. The end result was a substantial amount of business but more importantly a steady flow of business.

The local Home Depot referred installation of central a/c and heating units to Dan’s business when they sold a unit which added to Dan’s business’s bottom line.

A steady flow of work was important because normally more technicians were needed during the months when air-conditioning is in use as opposed to the months when heating was required. Having a fairly constant flow of work for his employees all year round eliminated the need for employee layoffs. This meant Dan could keep his employees working during what traditionally had been a slow time of year. The employees appreciated Dan doing this and most of them took their vacations during the colder weather.

One of Dan’s employees was Jake Conner who was married to Bonnie and they were somewhat unique. That was because Jake and Bonnie owned a condo in Las Vegas. They would spend six months, less one day here in northern California and six months plus one day in Los Vegas. Jake would work in both locations doing HVAC work and his wife would do substitute teaching at both locales. This split time living at these two locations was done for tax reasons because they said they were residents of Nevada and were avoiding California State income taxes. If doing this was proper was questionable, but so far they hadn’t been called on doing it.

The crews’ Dan employed times were normally spent installing either new or replacement major HVAC items as ductwork, compressors, and heating units. Dan’s time was spent only partially in the office since Helen for the most part handled ninety-five percent of the work that needed to be done there. Dan fancied himself as a troubleshooter along with being a repair estimator. When a customer called for service that their unit wasn’t working Dan would go and see if he could diagnose and fix the problem. If the problem was a major one he would give the customer a fair estimate on what the repairs would cost and give his honest opinion on what he would do if he was in their shoes. If it was a major repair and the customer agreed to it, one of his crews would come out and do the necessary work.

At this stage in his life, Dan was still single. He had been involved with some women but had not yet met the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with. He was looking to find her and he knew he wanted to be sure who she was before he asked her that important question. His social life, therefore, wasn’t something to brag about. He was keeping an open mind wondering if he would ever find this woman. If he did that would be great but if he didn’t, he would accept that it just wasn’t meant to be. He wanted to be sure she was the right one for him since he didn’t want to go through what he saw his parents going through before they divorced. He saw the bitterness that was being expressed before it happened.

Sitting at his desk in his office, Helen who was worth her weight in gold came in and gave him a two-minute daily briefing on what was going on with his crews and a few other matters that he should be made aware of. She also handed him a list of three customers who had called wanting a technician for service. Finishing his coffee Dan left the office to do these service calls taking one on the equipped vans.