various roles as early as high school, and two of the sons still work for the company in leadership roles to this day. “Between Robert and myself, my sons, and some good employees, we grew as the economy would let us,” Chuck says. “Pretty much we grew a little bit each year, it didn’t happen all at once.” Working within the confines of the upsand-downs of the economy, Energy Air continued on the path to success, expanding its service area and growing the business. In the mid 1990s, the company was only moving forward. While the two brothers (in-law) had succeeded in making Energy Air a standout name in the Orlando area, Robert made the decision to leave the company and move to be closer with his own family in South Carolina. At that time, Chuck took over as the president and sole owner.
out to jobs themselves, servicing what they sell versus doing system installations. Despite being owners, both Robert and Chuck had to take a hands-on approach in order to assure they put out a quality product and satisfied their customers. “A lot of times employees just think you start right at the top when you come in and start a business, but you really start by doing everything,” says Chuck. “At some point of course as we grew, we would have to move someone up to supervise while we looked for more work. But that’s the way we did it originally; we didn’t have a big hunk of money sitting out there where we could hire a bunch of employees to do all these things. We had to build our capital as we were going.”
When asked what he credits to the success of the company, Chuck immediately mentions his employees. He and Robert have always believed in a family-style approach to management, encouraging a close relationship with their team members, since their dedication is vital for the business to survive.
“We’re still very close … Robert didn’t have any other family working in the company and his kids were then getting into college and married, and they moved up to the South Carolina area,” says Chuck. “He and his wife wanted to be closer to their family, and that’s really the only reason he left, otherwise we’d probably still be working together today.”
As Energy Air grew, an extended family of staff grew along with it. For Chuck, his immediate family also became involved at a young age; his three sons started filling
Before 2006, Energy Air had grown beyond the dreams of its founders. They had in excess of 150 employees and a large fleet of trucks. In Orlando, they were the pre-
When Chuck arrived, Energy Air had a handful of employees, a couple of trucks on the road, and was earning around $25 thousand a month in revenue. Through the hard work of everyone involved, things continued driving forward. By the end of the 80s, the company had grown exponentially and moved into a larger facility. There was now a small fleet of Energy Air trucks on the road, and a growing workforce of dedicated people to keep opertions running smoothly.
8
COOL COMFORT
407-886-3729