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 “He’ll never fully retire, but he want- ed to take a little off his plate right now. His sons, Chad and Kyle, who run the commercial-industrial division, don’t have any interest in the residential divison — they relied on me for that anyway — so it just made sense for Jim and myself and our departments.
“It was a really good, mutually bene- ficial decision to have us part ways and for me to buy the division; it worked really well for them, and it’s worked really well for us,” he went on. “We still communicate frequently, and we still collaborate; I hire them as a sub when we need extra manpower, or they hire us as a sub on some jobs. So it works out pretty well.”
Roughly eight months into his
new enterprise, Cernak said his work
is well-balanced, split fairly evenly between service work, major reno- vations for general contractors, and installing and replacing heating and cooling systems. “It’s a pretty good mix, and some of that is commercial, too
— service work and small installation work.”
Western Mass Heating, Cooling & Plumbing is more departmentalized than most similar firms, he added, with a full service department.
“Even before 2020, new houses were getting a lot tighter, and indoor air quality was becoming a much higher priority for people.”
“Most companies around us don’t have a service department; they just throw in a service call here and there. We actually have a service department that’s dedicated to service work, then we have a new-construction installa- tion department that’s dedicated to the bigger work. That works well for our dispatching and keeping things orga- nized and keeping the right guys on the right jobs. It’s one reason we’re able to stay efficient and continue to grow.”
Into the Pipeline
What first drew Cernak into the plumbing field at Smith Voke was, simply, realizing for the first time the breadth of what tradespeople in that field do.
“As a teenager, I didn’t realize that plumbing was more than just cleaning a drain or fixing a toilet. A lot of people — not just young teenagers — think plumbing is just fixing plumbing; they think it’s just dirty work. But I got to see a different side of it — learning how the pipefitting works, doing some welding and some soldering.”
He also quickly learned, by researching the field, that it’s a trade
with stability and good job security. “It’s one of the higher-paid trades, so there were a lot of factors. But before that, it had never clicked to me that, hey, plumbers actually install the plumbing in a new house, too, not just fix the plumbing in an old house.”
The science of plumbing hasn’t changed much during his career, but HVAC is a different story.
quality was becoming a much higher priority for people, so we sell a lot of products that help with filtration and literally zap bacteria and viruses out of the air; there are all kinds of air-clean- ing products that we’re selling as part of our systems, part of our installations, part of our services. It’s not the core of our business, but it certainly is a pretty big part of our business.”
Businesses in Massachusetts took the lead on emphasizing air-quality measures indoors, much of it driven by regulations. But in the era of COVID- 19, people increasingly demand high- tech air-purifying systems in their
“We’d never had people asking for indoor air-quality measures — or very rarely; maybe 1% of people would ask for something like that back before coronavirus. And now, probably close to 20% to 30% ask for it specifically.”
Clearly, there will always be a mar- ket for plumbing and HVAC work — as Cernak said, this is a stable field — and he can see his fledgling company grow- ing, but one challenge will be attracting talent as it does. Right now, nation- wide, roughly three workers are aging out and retiring from these disciplines for every two young people who come in.
“And out of those two, probably
“Indoor air quality has been a big
factor,” he said. “Coronavirus certainly
helped with that — or hurt with that,
however you want to put it. But coro-
navirus certainly put a new spin on it.
But even before 2020, new houses were
getting a lot tighter, and indoor air homes.
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