1. Nashville Machine Hosts Controls Class: In February Mike Rausch and Brandon Brown (Nashville Machine) hosted a Controls Class in Nashville for Unified Group members. Twenty five technicians met for four days of theory, troubleshooting, hands-on training, and sharing best practices. “After attending The Unified Group’s Controls Class we finally got Tracer TU software,” said Mike McBratney (Design Mechanical). I was able to remove a controller from a cooling only VAV and reprogram and install it on a new parallel fan reheat box. It saved the customer money and is keeping Trane off our jobs!”
2. Mallory & Evans Sends Help: When Innovative Solutions was awarded a maintenance contract with GE Healthcare, they knew their technicians would need some additional training on the new design chillers that were included in the contract. They reached out to Mallory Evans to see if they could send a technician to South Carolina to provide some training. Mallory & Evans sent Steve Ernst, their chiller technician, down for three days. According to the Innovative Solutions team, Steve was extremely knowledgeable, answered all of their questions, and was AWESOME!
3. Enginuity Provides Programming Support: ISS posted a question on the technical email tool about needing help with a Tracer Summit. Their customer wanted to set up a DAT reset by polling the VAVs to lower the discharge air temps. This required some custom programming which they were not comfortable doing so they reached out to Enginuity for help. ISS sent the files over and Enginuity helped them out by doing the programming and even walked their tech through uploading the information and getting the building back on line over the phone. Thanks to the help from Enginuity this turned out to be a winning story for ISS and their customer.
4. Nashville Machine Provides Trane Support: For many years Control Services has serviced all the schools in the city but never any of the city office properties. They got a call from the owner who was having issues at one of their buildings and found that the problem appeared to be in the Trane Control system. Fortunately, the technician who was sent had attended the Technician Training class in Nashville. “Our tech called Nashville Machine, explained the problem, and they walked our technician through the log in procedure that got him access to the Trane automation system,” said Ron. Once in the system, their tech was able to make some adjustments and verify the proper operation of the equipment and got everything working for the customer. This whole process took less than two hours and the customer was so impressed that he finally had options other than the local Trane dealer. He didn’t think he had any other options than Trane and he really disliked having to work with them. We now are the exclusive service provider for the city and their six buildings and are currently working on a service contract agreement.”
5. “The Unified Group reminds me to be a businessman and to make business plans. It is way too easy to get involved with day-to-day events. The Unified Group creates an environment that lets me lift my head out of the distractions of the business and lets me focus on the business. I have a friend. With friends you will always be successful!” - Kevin Almon (Vital Mechanical)
6. Yale Mechanical Shares Catalyst Sales Strategy: Tom Barker (Guardian Environmental Services) relies on The Unified Group and his fellow members to get the help he needs to support his sales team. This year, Barker emailed the group asking for some sales advice on a product their team was having trouble selling. “I have to believe we are missing something and other members in the group could help us out and get this moving,” said Barker. That same day The Unified Group connected Barker with Tom Rowles (Yale Mechanical) who was able to share Yale’s sales strategy for the same product. “Tom (Rowles) took the time to provide us with a great deal of information and sales items that we can use to work for Guardian,” Barker explained. Rowles sent Barker an outline of their sales process, the promotional letter they sent to current clients, and the marketing they’re using to gain interest from prospective clients. “That’s one of the advantages of being in The Unified Group – we can tap into this knowledge and information in an email and phone call and be able to use many of their ideas,” said Barker. “Other HVAC companies would not help us to this level if we weren’t part of The Unified Group.”
7. Interstate Mechanical Goes Above and Beyond: While Interstate Mechanical was sandblasting a cooling tower for an Air Comfort client they found that the metal was in worse shape than it looked from the outside. Jeremy Ettesvold (Interstate) contacted Air Comfort with pictures and suggested replacing it in order to do the client justice. He included a revised proposal with a change order. Once Air Comfort got the okay from their client Jeremy rerouted a couple of guys over to the site that morning to pull one of the panels so their sheet metal shop could fab up new panels to complete the project by the end of the week.
8. New York Members Work Together: “We were lucky enough to work with several Unified Group members this year,” said Mike O’Connor (Alltek Energy Systems). “We did a sheet metal project for Time Warner in the Albany office with BP subcontracting us in the spring. It was about a $30,000 project that worked very well with our schedule.”
9. The $155k Phone Call: Earlier this year one of John Smith’s (Mallory & Evans) clients was buying a building in Tampa and called John to ask if he knew of anyone in that market. John got his client in touch with Rich Bodwell (Innovative Service Solutions). Since then Rich has gotten to know John’s client very well and recently picked up over $155k in work including a control system installation and a chiller maintenance agreement. Innovative Service Solutions is also performing service calls as well. It took one phone call to a fellow Unified Group member for John to help address his client’s needs outside of the Atlanta area (something not many contractors in his area could have done). How are you helping clients who have needs beyond your service area? Take a note out of John’s book and use your Unified Group membership to your competitive advantage!
10. Tweet Garot Mechanical Shares Their iPad Experience: Tweet/Garot hosted folks from Air Comfort, Control Services, Baker Group, and Yale Mechanical to show first-hand the steps they’ve taken to mobilize their field service and the forms and processes that they utilize. “We had some great iPad implementation training (and good times) thanks to our friends at Tweet, Sara and Greg!” said Jim Bartolotta. “We had a blast with the TUG group,” said Sara. “The members are such an awesome group…more like family, really.” In addition to the iPad training and tour of Tweet/Garot, members also caught the game at Lambeau field.
11. $292,240 - Amount Unified Group members have saved by partnering with Schooley Mitchell.
12. Guardian Helps a Fellow Member Save Money For Their Client : The Unified Group’s email tools are great resources to get the support you need to make a decision, save some money, or find a better solution. This year Jim Maidlow (LMC Service Solutions) posted a question on the technical email tool looking for an additional source for oil his customer needed for their equipment. The pricing he was finding on his own seemed high so he posted the question Wednesday evening. By early Thursday morning Tom Barker (Guardian Environmental Services) had a less costly option sent over saving Jim and his customer more than $850 overnight!
13. Nashville Machine Saves Time: The Trakref with Polar Technologies has helped Nashville Machine track refrigerant and equipment service history. “The biggest advantage is the EPA refrigerant tracking compliance has taken the record keeping from a couple hours a week to a couple minutes a week,” said Randy Stone (Nashville Machine).
14. Mechanical Services & Systems Shares Safety Program Advice: Marina Mechanical was looking to develop a more comprehensive safety program for their team. Denny Mann posted a question on the Operations Email Tool looking for feedback and within the day he had five detailed responses back from fellow members explaining the safety programs they have in place. He also received a call from Mike Willey, Mechanical Service & Systems full-time safety director. Mike explained the details behind MSS’ safety program and even suggested he come out and visit Denny since he had family in the area. A couple months later, Denny received a phone call from Mike saying that he was in the area and asked if it would be a good time to stop by. “Mike drove 45 minutes each way and spent an hour and a half talking about what they’re doing at MSS,” explained Denny. “He brought a disk full of training information and shared everything with me. Mike’s information will really help us with our safety program.”
15. Colorado Climate Maintenance Opens Their Doors: Since joining the group earlier this year, Sam De Angelis (Colorado Climate Maintenance) has wasted no time getting involved and building relationships with other Unified Group members. Sam welcomed fellow Unified Group member, Miller Air Conditioning, to their office to review the software that CCM uses. “We had only planned on being there for a couple of hours, but Sam had blocked out the entire day for us, and spent considerable time showing us his operation and the software that runs it,” said Stuart Murray (Miller Air Conditioning). “We were able to learn a lot which is helping us to make our decision about implementing new software.” Sam has also connected with Spaeth, Inc. and GES to answer their questions about the same software. “Sam has some really neat ways that he tracks performance, profitability, efficiency and timeliness of his men,” said Kevin Spaeth (Spaeth, Inc.). “We are getting reports set up so we can do more of what he is doing…..copying is the highest form of flattery!”