HVAC Contractor Bob Helbing Interviewed on “All In with Brian Weatherford”

Transcript from interview

Bryan Weatherford
It’s interesting here on the show “All In with Brian Weatherford” when we get a chance to talk to companies that are long time family-owned businesses. We do that quite frequently, but it’s also interesting when you get multiple generations within the same family that have a very similar educational background as well.

And that’s exactly what we have today here on the show. I think it’s going to be a good one. Pay close attention. The name of the company today is Air-Tro, Inc. Mr. Air-Tro, Inc. himself, and my guest, Bob Helbing is right here on the show.

Bob, how are you, sir? Great to see you.

Bob Helbing
I’m good. I’m good. Thank you. Good to see you too.

Bryan Weatherford
You’re a third gen. You’re third in a three-generation term of engineers. Is that correct?

Bob Helbing
That’s correct. My dad; chemical engineer, my grandfather; civil engineer, and I’m mechanical.

Bryan Weatherford
Okay. Well with your background, the fact that you have an engineering background, what else? What all did you do? You even had a role through the aerospace engineer industry at one time? Is that correct?

Bob Helbing
That’s right. I got my degree in mechanical engineering from Caltech. Right after I graduated I went right into aerospace, worked on ballistic missile programs. My wife likes to tease me and call me a rocket scientist. But then the Berlin wall came down and we didn’t need quite so many rocket scientists anymore. So it was time to do something else.

Bryan Weatherford
What is this family business we’re talking about? Air-Tro. What type of business are you into?

Bob Helbing
We’re HVAC contractors. Heating, air conditioning, ventilation. We take care of about 15,000 customers a year. Repair, replace. If your great aunt has an old wall heater that needs a new gas valve, we can take care of that. If your manufacturing facility is building out a clean room for high-tech pharmaceuticals, we can take care of that too.

Bryan Weatherford
Are you all strictly commercial? Or do you dabble on the residential end too?

Bob Helbing
Oh, we’re 50 50. About half of our work is homeowners. Half of it is businesses.

Bryan Weatherford
Well, you know, there’s so much going on these days with COVID and everything. I’d have to think your business is impacted. And please correct me if I’m wrong, I’m going to take a stab at it right now. Everybody’s paying a lot closer attention to sanitization if you will, than they have in the past. For air quality as well. Have you seen a little bump or more questions regarding “how’s our air quality” and stuff since COVID has happened?

Bob Helbing
Oh yeah, it’s been a big shift. We’ve always advertised products that can improve the air quality in your home or your business… ultraviolet lamps, high-end filters photocatalytic oxidizers. These are all products that will destroy biological contaminants, viruses, bacteria, or capture them, get them out of the airstream. They’ve always been kind of a sideline not really a sexy thing to sell. And you can imagine that kind of changed last year. Suddenly there was a lot more interest in this kind of equipment.

Bryan Weatherford
People are like, “Hey, Bob, remember that thing you told me about last year that I really didn’t think I needed. I need it tomorrow. Can you? Can you be here tomorrow?”

Bob Helbing
Yeah, we saw a sudden spike in demand. To be honest, our suppliers really struggled to keep up – the manufacturers.  What we saw locally they saw nationally or even globally. Well, they had to ramp up production quite a bit. So while we would have liked to have been able to deliver right away, sometimes people had to wait a few weeks. I mean, you’re seeing that with the vaccines right now.

Fortunately, our manufacturers, they’re not quite that high end as, you know, Pfizer or Moderna. They were able to deliver. And so now we have a good availability of product. People need that kind of help. We can get them taken care of right away.

Bryan Weatherford
Well, that’s good news to hear, but even putting all that aside, there’s still the tried and true fact that people need to keep their systems maintained properly for a variety of reasons. I mean financially, for example. Give me some of the financial advantages of keeping everything running smoothly.

Bob Helbing
Typically a homeowner is not going to buy a new central heating and air conditioning system every year. I sure hope not. It’s like an every 10, 15, 25 year process. Now you’re investing a lot of money in these systems. You want to make sure that your investment is protected. You’re going to make sure that everything is maintained. Little things become big problems. So that’s where we can come in and help out with a regular maintenance program that not only maintains, but it improves the system efficiency.

Bryan Weatherford
Talking on the efficiency that makes total sense. If it’s something as simple as – even on a residential end  –  changing your air filters when you were supposed to, we don’t need you to do that. But so many times people don’t even do it. Do you run into situations where your crews showed up and said your filters are filthy and that’s all they want.

Bob Helbing
And particularly this summer we saw a lot of wildfires locally. There was a lot of ash in the air. So normally we change your filter every six months or so. We were changing them every 60 days. And honestly it made a big difference for the homeowners. If they were suffering from allergies or dust or anything like that, a quick replacement of those filters did a lot to improve their quality of life.

Bryan Weatherford
We mentioned earlier in the interview, you’re 50 50, so on the commercial end I couldn’t imagine the size of those filters and whatnot, but do a lot of the companies have in-house maintenance staff to keep up with that, or do you have contracts on the commercial side as well to go in and maintain systems?

Bob Helbing
Most commercial operations don’t really want to worry that much about their HVAC systems. Their focus is on delivering product, taking care of their customers. Worrying about the HVAC is a distraction for them. So they would prefer to have a phone number they can call. Or even better, be on a schedule where we come out every two to three months and handle all that for them. So they keep their focus where they want to keep their focus on their business

Bryan Weatherford
On the smaller end as homeowners we need to keep our focus on what we’re doing. We don’t want to have to worry about changing air filters. So why wouldn’t we do the same thing?

Bob Helbing
Absolutely. I have teenage sons, they can go in the attic and change the filters. You know, I’ll give them an extra five bucks in their allowance. But if you’re talking about a widow or maybe an older couple, they don’t want to crawl around in their attic or their crawl space. So for them to have a service like us come out and replace those filters regularly so they don’t have to deal with it, it improves their life. It preserves their equipment. It keeps their utility bills where they’re supposed to be. For those people it’s a big help.

Bryan Weatherford
Talk to me about this Bob. Sticking with the residential side, obviously there’s more than Bob working for the company. So how do you go about getting personnel in place? Your technicians, the characteristics that you need for people that are going to be able….because frankly, anytime you’re walking into someone’s home, particularly these days, me as a homeowner, I want to make sure it’s someone I can trust. What do you do to make sure you get the right type of people to work with you?

Bob Helbing
Well, one thing we do with every new hire, we’ll do a drug screen. We do a criminal background check because like you said people are trusting me to put someone in their home that they can feel comfortable with. But also we do a lot of hiring from family and friends. I’ll tell my installation teams we need a new helper. And somebody will say, well, I’ve got a nephew. He has his own power tools. He’s always working on his car. That’s a good person to talk to. And we can build on that relationship he has with his uncle, bring him in here, try them out. And that’s, that’s a good way to find new staff.

Bryan Weatherford
And in my experience, not necessarily in your industry, but just in industries in general, I love that because somebody is not going to recommend someone to me that’s going to make them look stupid when they don’t work out. So a lot of the work is already done. I would much rather have a recommendation from a friend than just have a cold call off the street. At least I have a little insight. And again, the knowledge that my friend is not going to jeopardize our friendship by sending in his worthless nephew to apply for a job. Is that fair enough?

Bob Helbing
That’s true. We also have relationships with some of the local trade schools. There are about half a dozen in Southern California that focus on training HVAC service technicians. These guys have committed, you know, year, year and a half to building technical skills. I frequently will serve on the advisory boards for these schools that want to have contractors in the community, be a part of their curriculum preparation. You know, what do we need? What we don’t need.

So I’ll have a relationship with the instructors and I can talk to them, find out who their best people are, who might be a good hire. And that’s another good source of new people in my workforce.

Bryan Weatherford
You know, I could go on for an hour talking about a that. We’re big fans of the trade schools on this show, but I’m out of time today. I can’t go that route, but it’s nice to hear a pro like yourself has the same feelings we do regarding that. Well, keep doing what you’re doing. You know, again, maybe it’s not rocket science, but even if it was, you could probably handle that as well. Thanks for sharing your story with us today. Continue success. Take care.

Bob Helbing
Thank you, Brad.

At Air-Tro we are focused on delivering exceptional service with every call. If you’ve been looking for a reliable HVAC company give us a call at 626-357-3535.