2006 Golden Spike Award Winner: Thermal Services

Published: Aug. 10, 2006 North Council Golden Spike Award Recipient: Thermal Services, Inc.*

"Hire good people and give them the opportunity to do good work." That, according to Thermal Services founder and chairman, Staff Flowers, is at the heart of the company's success. The area's premier heating and air conditioning company, Thermal Services serves both residential and commercial customers in the Omaha metro area. Throughout its 38-year history, the organization has continued to earn awards and recognition from its peers, its industry and its customers - including the Better Business Bureau's Integrity Award, twice.

Yet, if you asked most of the 80 employees, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone who had ever worked in the heating and cooling industry prior to joining Thermal Services.

What you will discover is an organization where everyone shares the same commitment to integrity in dealing with clients and a never-ending desire to acquire the knowledge they need to do their jobs well. To help them achieve their potential, Thermal Services employs a full-time trainer - the only company in its industry that does.

In the process, Thermal Services has established a reputation for having the most highly trained and knowledgeable people. In fact, 67 percent of senior technicians have earned core certification by the North American Technical Alliance (NATA), the industry's third-party testing organization. Of these, 44 percent have gone on to earn certifications in three additional specialty areas. Nationwide, only four percent of technicians have earned such distinction.

"This doesn't happen by accident," Flowers said. "The atmosphere here is a learning organization, where anyone can be successful. There's a lot of pride in knowing you can come in here and have a career, make a good living and excel to your fullest potential."

That extends beyond those technicians who provide the service. After all, Thermal Services has always been a service provider. In fact, the business was started strictly with this idea, according to Flowers. It's an important difference in an industry where most providers lead with selling the equipment and service is secondary.

"I started Thermal Services as a service provider, offering maintenance and repair. For the first two or three years, I didn't sell a single furnace," he said. Instead, he provided service work for customers who called him directly and also contractors and installers who did not have the resources to provide service work to their own customers.

Today, Thermal Services offers a full range of heating and air conditioning services to residential and commercial customers. On the commercial side, this includes design assistance, installation, service, repair and maintenance. For residential customers, Thermal Services offers service, repair and maintenance, as well as replacement to existing homes.

"Service is a repeat business," says Flowers. "That's where you see the value of the relationship. We've had relationships with our customers for 20 years and more."

What's more, Thermal Services continues to grow in an industry where growth is stagnant and in a market where 126 companies compete for business.

These lasting relationships are not only confined to customers. The average tenure of Thermal Services management is nearly 25 years. It's also quite an accomplishment in an industry where only one of three people last beyond their first year.

"This is hard work," said Flowers. "We are a business first and a fun company second."

Employees know that they can have a future - one that is interesting every step of the way.

Larry Toyne, vice president, has been with Thermal Services for 30 years, after answering an ad in a small town Iowa newspaper. "I asked Staff if he had the kind of job I could work for the rest of my life and he said, 'yes.' I started washing windows, apprenticed for replacements and then moved into refrigeration after six months," Toyne said. After five years, he and Flowers became equal partners in the purchase of Bellevue Heating and Cooling before consolidating the two companies. And the rest, as they say is history.

Mary Wells, too has been with the company for more than 30 years and in that time has "worn many hats" before becoming controller. "It all started because I knew how to operate one of those old Burroughs bookkeeping machines," she said. "Within a year, he had convinced me to come on board full time and since then, I've done every job in this company except actually work in production. That's just how it is here. You always have the opportunity to do something more and that's what keeps people here."

Even now, as Thermal Services has grown from just a handful of employees to 80, remarkably, the family atmosphere of the company hasn't. "You really don't notice that there are so many people," said Michelle Barraza, client services manager. "You can still recognize everyone by their first names, their spouse, kids and sometimes even their dog. And I don't think that will ever change - no matter how many employees we eventually have."

That's just as Flowers hopes it will be. "I feel confident that the company will run on the same values long after I'm gone," he said. "The customer who calls 10 years from now should see the same thing from us. That's personally meaningful to me."