I knew from the time I was four years old that I wanted to own a business. Watching my father help my grandfather with his own business was extremely instructive at a young age. They taught me the sheer importance of keeping a customer happy, especially if that means retaining that customer from that point moving forward. All businesses thrive on repeat customers and happy-customer referrals. Letting people walk out your door angry whenever you cannot come to a compromise will eventually lead to failure, even if it takes a little while to get to ruin. My trade has always been heating and cooling systems. I went to trade school instead of college and settled on HVAC after auto mechanic classes weren’t to my liking. Even though my employer was always popular in the area, the clientele was slowly falling apart. We weren’t fulfilling service requests on time and many of my coworkers were doing less than desirable work while feeling like they are constantly under pressure. I asked a few of them if they would work harder if they worked for me instead of our boss at the time, and they agreed without a moment’s hesitation. Now I have an HVAC company of my own here in Pinellas Park. The office is just close enough to the water that I can see Tampa Bay out my window while I’m working. We get a lot of calls to places like Brandon and Palmetto, as there are customers there who are looking for better customer service than what our competitors have offered them in the past.