Beyond the Meeting Room: Dogtown Heating, Air & Plumbing Brad Houchens | Entrepreneurs



Brad Houchens is a co-owner of Dogtown Heating, Air and Cooling. At the headquarters in St. Joseph on Monday, September 27, 2021.



What grew into a 12-man business began four years ago as a three-man crew: St. Joseph in the country. Heap of blood And his two business partners, Sean Rutrel from Lantor and Jeremy Copman from Gifford.

“We were colleagues from another business, and we all brought something different with us,” says Houchens.

This is the story of how Dogtown Heating, Air & Plumbing, based in Paxton, was born.

Houchens is more than a small business owner. An avid Cardinals fan (my favorite player so far: Scott Rolen) has been teaching youth baseball (“all levels – from 8 years to high school”) for 20 years.

Prairie Elementary School, Urbana Junior High School and Urbana High School also run farms and live in a small vegetable garden with his wife Ashley, son Bryson, daughter Bryley, two dogs and now four forage cows. Increase.

Houchens took the time to answer questions from editor Jeff D’Alessio in the 97th weekly quick reading that put executives at companies of all sizes in the spotlight.

My philosophy when it comes to meetings is … Make them short, cute, and sensible. Nobody likes meetings, so make them as harmless as possible.

Maybe it contains donuts.

The hardest part of becoming a leader is … Anxiety. I always want to make sure that our customers and colleagues are satisfied.

I can’t live without myself … Friends and family. There are few people who can live alone, and they never can.

I continue to rely heavily on my friends and family.

My entrepreneurial role model is … My father. He took me – sometimes unintentionally – to the HVAC business and taught me the trade.

I’m spartan about it … I hate inventory a lot. We try to keep only what we need for our customers.

You don’t need an item that you just put on a shelf to collect dust.

my I liked the moment best in this job The takeover of Dogtown and my business partners Shawn and Jeremy. We have moved to a crew of 3 to 12 wonderful people.

One of my irrevocable rules at work is … People before profit. We have to take care of the people. Customers and colleagues.

The biggest business risk I’ve ever taken is … Buy Dogtown and Hand It Over.

When it comes to the last luxury I’ve indulged in … I was just able to order the 2021 Ford F-250.

I am awake and to you every day … 5 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.

As far as my training routine is … There are no scheduled exercises, but the work can sometimes involve hard physical labor.

I’m lucky … I never really did a bad job. I was able to take something with me from all my previous work and use it at the next stop.

On a scale from 1 to 10, the effects of the pandemic are … Probably 3 years old. I’ve embraced time and have more time with my family.

Beyond the meeting room: Dogtown heating, air and plumbing Brad Houchens | Entrepreneur

Source link Beyond the meeting room: Dogtown heating, air and plumbing Brad Houchens | Entrepreneur

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