behind the business
It’s a Family Tradition Three generations work together at Al Fulford Heating and Cooling. story by DENICE PATTERSON
When
PHOTOGRAPHY BY GENIE LEIGH PHOTOGRAPHY
Hinton Fulford Sr. drove his Chevy work truck from Supply, N.C., to Florence, S.C., twice a week to pick up parts all those years ago, little did he know he was sowing the seeds for a family legacy. It was 1974 and the father of four had just bought a fledgling heating and air company from his cousin, after working for him for only two years. With one truck — and the help of his wife and teenage sons Hinton Jr., who goes by “Al,” and Marty — Fulford Heating and Cooling was on its way. Forty years later the company is into its third generation of Fulfords and has grown to 40 employees and a fleet of 18 vehicles. Supply native Hinton was born in 1928 on the family farm, just a stone’s throw from where he would later build the office and workshop for his growing company. “We didn’t go to the hospital in those days,” he shares. “There was an old-timey woman who came around with a black bag and delivered the babies.” That midwife delivered all the Fulford siblings and cousins back then.
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South Brunswick Magazine
Hinton was raised on the same land that was granted to three Fulford brothers in the 1700s. “Those men were granted this land by the King of England,” Hinton says. The land was handed down from father to sons for more than three centuries. “My great grandpa inherited the piece from the stop light to the island,” he says, pointing out the window from the office. The land was handed down to Hinton’s grandfather, then to his father and then to him. “My great grandpa owned a piece of the island before the Holdens did,” he says. He sold those 70 acres of island for $700. “He sort of gave it away, didn’t he?” he says. At age 15, too young to enlist in World War II, Hinton joined the crew of a dredge boat. Duty called, however, and at age 18 the tall and lanky blue-eyed youth joined the army, serving his country until 1950. He returned to the dredge boat and spent the next 20-plus years clearing the channels of the Intracoastal Waterway from Maryland to Florida.