 | |
 | |
 |  |  | |||||||||||
July 2006 Business of the Month | |||||||||||||
Growing up around uncles Dale and Bob in the building business, his father Bill in the excavating business, and uncle Gene in HVAC, Steve Hon certainly had no shortage of relatives with which he could work. He did find he was more interested in his uncle Gene’s specialty, however, and purchased his business in May 1997, when he changed the business name to Hon’s Heating & Cooling because, “Nobody ever called us by our first names.” Hon Heating & Cooling sells and installs Lennox and Tempstar HVAC equipment for residential and small commercial applications. They carry indoor air quality equipment, including humidifiers, air cleaners and germicidal lamps, along with home purification systems. They also install geothermal heat pumps. His company can provide service on any brand of HVAC equipment and offers planned service maintenance agreements. “We can provide more services than heating and cooling,” Steve said. “We have equipment that can make your homes and businesses more comfortable than ever before, with consistent temperature, humidity and clean air in any zone of a building.” Steve found his greatest business challenge in finding quality, dedicated employees. “I feel I have the best group of employees ever at this time, and now my challenge is to retain them by paying a fair wage and benefits, while remaining competitive with pricing against those whose companies don’t provide those high standards.” Steve said. Steve can certainly take pride in his history of employee retention. Office manager Diane Noble has been with the company for 18 years; sheet metal and shop manager Bill Lockhard for 17 years; service and sales manager David Vogt for 10 years. Steve’s wife Dianne is a teacher of Family and Consumer Sciences for Sherwood Cass R-8 school district. Their son Will graduated from Sherwood last May and will be attending KU’s Masters of Architecture school this fall. Will has worked for the company each summer. A charter member of the Cass County Elks Lodge, Steve finds value in Chamber membership through “the opportunity to network and share information with one another. It is an avenue to air opinions and feel your ideas have merit.” Steve says that his company’s future growth will depend on the county’s growth. “We will expand as the demand for our products rises,” he said.
| |||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||
| | | | | | | | | | | | | |
