Page 24 - BusinessWest June 9, 2021

Air Apparent
Scott Cernak Sets His Own Course with New Company
NBy Joseph Bednar
ever underestimate the influence
of a teacher.
Or, in Scott Cernak’s case, two
of them, who taught plumbing when he was a student at Smith Vocational & Agri- cultural High School, and proved engag- ing enough in the subject to capture his attention.
“I wasn’t sure which trade I wanted to take,” he said. “The plumbing teachers there were really good — I never thought I would have chosen plumbing, but I ended up liking it quite a bit.”
He likes the trajectory of his career as well. Today, Cernak is the owner of a com- pany — Western Mass Heating, Cooling
& Plumbing — that recently spun off M.J. Moran Inc., the only company he’d ever worked for, and where he latched on as an intern early in his junior year at Smith.
“I started on my 16th birthday and started liking it more and more,” he recalled. “I got into more and more things; I started doing sprinkler fitting, all kinds of pipe fitting, welding and plumbing and HVAC.”
All of that appealed to him, but he was especially interested in the residential divi- sion, which hadn’t been a significant part
of Moran’s business, but which he and two other employees started growing steadily. “At this point, I was in my early 20s and running a lot of large residential and small commercial jobs, new-construction service calls — anything from packing a faucet to doing a whole new house and everything in between.”
“
mutually beneficial decision to have us part ways and for me to buy the division.”
His success in that division led to a pro- motion to general manager of the com- pany in 2016, and something bigger four years later. “I got the opportunity to buy the division that I helped build,” he told BusinessWest, “and here we are.”
The reason for the spinoff company is that Jim Moran, who launched his enter- prise 42 years ago, is heading — slowly — toward retirement, Cernak explained.
Scott Cernak’s expertise and development of the residential division at M.J. Moran are serving him well today as the head of his own venture.
It was a really good,
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