In this episode of "Commercial Corner," hosts Jeff and James Bushland discuss the significant changes and growth Lee's Air, Plumbing, & Heating has experienced over the years. James, a familiar face from Lee's various media campaigns, shares his journey within the company and highlights the impressive transformation from Lee's Air 1.0 to Lee's Air 2.0.
Key Points Covered:
James' Journey at Lee's Air:
James began his career at Lee's Air eight years ago as a commercial HVAC technician.
Three years ago, he transitioned to the role of asset coordinator, overseeing vehicle maintenance, tool procurement, and office supplies.
Growth and Rebranding:
Lee's Air has seen exponential growth, expanding from a small operation to a well-recognized brand.
Four years ago, Lee's Air rebranded, significantly increasing their visibility in the community. The rebranding included updating the fleet with new wraps and logos, making their trucks a common sight in the Central Valley.
Marketing and Recognition:
James credits the marketing team, particularly Josue, for their outstanding efforts in promoting Lee's Air.
Despite some initial skepticism from the public, James reassures listeners that he is an actual employee first and a marketing personality second, underscoring the company's policy of promoting from within.
Company Culture and Training:
Lee's Air emphasizes training and development, ensuring employees have the knowledge and skills to succeed.
The company's culture fosters growth and opportunity, allowing employees to advance and even prepare to run their own businesses if they choose.
Operational Excellence:
Jeff and James discuss the importance of maintaining their fleet and ensuring quick response times to customer needs.
Lee's Air's commitment to customer service is reflected in their ability to deploy technicians efficiently and keep their vehicles in top condition.
Expansion and Future Vision:
Lee's Air has expanded into new markets, including Sacramento and Visalia, and aims to become a major presence from Bakersfield to Sacramento.
The company continues to adapt to industry changes, such as new refrigerants, and is dedicated to growing its service area and capabilities.
Conclusion:
Jeff and James wrap up the episode by reflecting on the company's journey and the importance of maintaining their core values of customer service, employee growth, and community involvement. They express excitement for the future and reiterate their commitment to providing top-notch service.
Listeners are encouraged to visit Lee's Air's website for more information and to contact them for any HVAC, plumbing, or heating needs.
This is Jeff, and I have James Buschman with me today. And today's going to be a little fun, I think, because we're going to talk a little bit about Lees 1. 0 versus Lees 2. 0, as we both have seen some pretty incredible changes here at Lees. And, some of you'll recognize James from his, Spot on our TV commercials and radio commercials and print media billboards, et.
He's, he's kind of been a bit of a mascot for us and it's been a lot of fun. So, , James, welcome to the podcast this morning.
Glad to be here. , I was thrilled to be asked to do this. I know we have a lot of conversations about Work and the things that are going on and I love to share that sort of thing with the people that listen to us
So we'll get into the history a little bit We got a lot of fun things we can talk about but first thing I want to do is I want to have James , tell us how he how he came to be a lees employee and what he was doing for us when he got here and what he's doing now.
James, you want to share a little bit?
, just about eight years ago, I had finished going through, training for, HVAC and got hired on at Lee's, started as a commercial tech. And then three years ago, I was asked to step in the role of asset coordinator. , I take care of oversee the vehicles, the ordering of tools, ladders, anything that the techs might need.
I take care of ordering things for the office, office supplies. I kind of oversee a lot of different things. I help people to do the job they need to do so that we can take care of our customers.
So James, as, As we both know, obviously this place is a rapidly changing place. Absolutely. I would like to just kind of put you on the spot and then have you go back a little bit and tell me some of the, tell me about something you think is, would be interesting to our viewers that has changed from how it was then to how it is now.
Well, when I started here, we were still fairly small. And in the almost eight years that I've been here, we have grown exponentially. And, about four years ago, we rebranded and, changed the look of Lees and people I talked to say, I see your trucks everywhere. And, they, the people out there know who we are and that's, That's directly related to our marketing.
, we have an absolutely amazing marketing person in Josue. He's an amazing person, does such a good job on our marketing. And, I give him a lot of credit for the fact that people know who we are.
You know, I'll, I'll jump in really quick. So it's pretty interesting. I've actually had a couple of people, it's happened more than once where.
I was challenged by one of those people that it's that it wasn't right for us to bring an actor in And portray an employee and so that's one of the reasons why I wanted to have you on here and as if James is truly an employee first and a marketing personality second, which is which is great because it really speaks to Lee's air using our people from the bottom up meaning that we hire from within , there's opportunity to grow here at this company.
You know, there are a lot of, a lot of businesses out there. You go to work as employee, and then you retire as employee. Employee. There are very few people here at Lees Air James. Wouldn't you agree that finish where they started? Absolutely. Just an amazing opportunity to grow in your position. , I would say most of us that have been here as long as you've been, Are doing something different than when they first started
here.
Absolutely. And one of the things, when I started here that Tom impressed upon all of us is that he wanted us to have the knowledge to run a business so that if we chose to step away from Lee's Air and start our own business, that we had the training to do that. Yeah. And, training is something that this company that Lee's Air, is very adamant about, they will help you get the knowledge, get training, if you have something you want to go to school for, that's related to the industry, they will help you with that.
, because they want, he wants people to succeed.
Right. I remember as we're,you know, being a hundred years old and a dinosaur in the industry, I've watched this company evolve from We could all fit on at one table for dinner to where I heard, I think I heard you tell, heard you say something yesterday to the effect of, and we're going to get into that in a little bit, James, but I heard he mentioned that, you know, right now there's 130 vehicles here at Lee's.
That's pretty incredible. And that kind of speaks to that. And I hear it too. Yeah, I see you guys everywhere and we literally are everywhere. Yes, occasionally on my on my social media. I'll do a screenshot of the midday and it shows we have people everywhere. Yes, we do in the Central Valley and that speaks to our ability to You know, one of the things we've always done here at Lees Air was take care of customers quickly.
Yes. So that when, in order to do that, we need, we need James and I'm going to, I'm going to have you go into it a little bit in a minute. We need James and his team to be able to do the amazing things they do to keep our trucks rolling. You know, there's a, there's not a bunch of broken down trucks here. They're all out there in the field helping customers.
And so James, I want you to just take a minute and tell me a little bit about. , you did mention that you used to be out in the field. Yes. And we brought you in inside. , And tell me about the role that you're in and how it's how it's evolved and how it benefits the our customers but also benefits us as employees because I can't think of a day in the last five years that I haven't came to you For something that I need to help me so that means there's another 100 plus people that are coming to you as well.
So, give me a little give me a little background on exactly what You do here at
Lees Air. Well, I make sure that the vehicles are ready to go, that they have the things on them that they need. , if the guys are having issues with their vehicle, I get it to the shop. We get it fixed quickly and get it done.
Right. , we have multiple shops that we use here in the Valley that take care of us. And the ones we use have the same sort of ideology that we do. We've got to get it done. Right. We've got to get it done. Right. The first time. And at the end of the day, if we can't take care of our customers, they're going to go somewhere that that will take care of them.
And that's what my goal is, is, you know, whether it's a guy calling me in the morning says, Hey, my battery's dead. I need to jump start and I jumped in my truck, drive to him, get it started. So he can get going and get his day going. So that he can get to his customers and take care of them, you know, I do All sorts of things like that if it means taking a van to a guy because his is broke down on the side of the road I take drop off a van and then I wait for the tow truck so that he can keep going, you know That's the sort of thing that I do myself, the people that work with me , we have an amazing warehouse team that helps me with a lot of these things And, I can't say enough about Cesar and his, his team in the warehouse, helping me get things done.
Yeah, I'll
have Cesar on here, soon. That would be good. Yeah. So, , I think, I think it'd be a miss for me not to point out the fact that, at Lease we've, we've grown, we've, we've, brought multiple smaller companies. Are now part of Lee's, , some names, a lot of names people have known forever.
, Mitchell Lair, been around for 75 years. They're now part of Lee's Air. Vern's Plumbing, , Marthedal Heating and Cooling, A& P, Comfort Now. And in that process, there is a lot of work to do to take A different brand and integrated people wise and all of the, all of the work that needs to be done there, but also, , from the field aspect.
So, , James, take a minute and kind of explain to me what, you mentioned a little while ago, our rebranding that we did, , four years ago, was it now? I think it's been four years. We rebranded, but we also, grew so quickly that we moved into another location almost simultaneously. So, , tell me a little bit about this robust rebrand rebranding, program that we did, because I believe, you know, we wrap well over a hundred vehicles.
Yes. Yes. And, you know, like with comfort now when we, took over and, and partnered with them and then. Brought them into the Lee's air,body. , they had about 15, 20 vehicles that we had to rewrap and. We, the company we used was great. They spot on, you know, Hey, this one's done. Bring us another one.
And we just. In a month's time, we had all our vehicles rewrapped so that, the lease logo was on all the vehicles going to customers houses. , we're currently, as we've taken on the roofing portion of, of this, we've had to have a few vehicles. Changed a bit so that it's got the roofing emblems moving forward.
Yeah. Yeah, and , the roofing license number, you know, we always have to be very aware that we, we follow the regulations to make sure that we have the proper identification on our vehicles. Yeah,
that's good stuff. So, ,So DMV, all of that, that's you. So, yeah. And putting, you know, we, If you, if you out there in the viewing audience, if you haven't drive by driven by our facility before, I welcome you to do that.
It's pretty impressive to see the fleet out there and pretty proud of it. Yes. , it's being in the industry forever. Like me, it's, it's. Very, you know, if you drive a red car, you notice all, if you drive a red Jeep, you notice all the red Jeeps. So when you're in the air conditioning businesses, which is the mother, the mothership of our business, , you notice all the other companies and the, the mindset behind the rebranding that Tom had, we were the first to do it.
Many have followed us since then. And that's typically the case. We lead that we lead first than other companies. , follow up, follow our lead. But, you know, there's the typical air conditioning truck here in the central Valley is a white truck with some sort of a red and blue logo, red for heat, blue for cooling, and it works.
And, and they're still out there, but when they're driving down the freeway and you see one come in, I know who they are. Because I look for them, but most people don't. But what I hear now is, Oh yeah, I see, I can see your trucks coming and going. And I regularly, when I drive into a neighborhood to go visit a customer, , to go talk to someone for whatever reason, it's not uncommon for me to pass two or three trucks on the way and see one, sometimes two in the same neighborhood.
And you know, that, that's, That speaks to Lee's Air's capacity to help people. And, you know, you've heard me say it a million times. I'll say it again. And we're not in the air conditioning business here. We're not in the heating, plumbing, roofing business, James, , you know, we're in the people business.
Absolutely. We just happen to be good at those other things. And as we've grown and exponentially, one of the things that's never changed. Is how, how quickly we get to customer's houses and how important it is to help people. And I love that. It go it, it gives me the energy to get up every morning Yes.
And come do this because, you know, it's, I have an opportunity today. Yes. And as well as you to, to affect other people's lives. Yes. , people that work here Mm-Hmm. as well as, as well as, , you know, our customers out there and a lot of our customers have been with us since the very beginning and they stay with us.
Because of our, , commitment to them. And
for you on the commercial side, our commercial customers know that if they call with a problem, we've got someone on the way, you know, and that's, we've worked very hard to get to the point where if someone calls, we have someone out there as quick as possible.I know on install there's, we've got it now to where from the time the job is sold to the time they start pulling the unit out is hours, you know, it's not, it's not okay.
Yeah. We'll get there next Friday. It's okay. Yeah. Let's move forward with this. We'll have a crew out here in two hours to start pulling the old unit out. Sometimes we have the whole job done in a day's time.
Yeah. One of the great things about. Working here is, , we talked earlier about opportunity to advance, but we've got a bunch of people here that love being here.
And that is such a, and I do know where you worked out before. I'll leave that alone for now. Yeah. . But, it was a very large company. It was, and you know, we've, we've had lots of opportunity to talk about it and Yeah. You, you know, you kind of felt like a number there. You did. Did And they, they, and when, when, when, if you don't mind me saying, so when you, when you ended there, it was a bit abrupt and it, and it was, you know, and, and I take pride on the fact that, you know, an interesting thing about Lee's Air and Commercial Corner, if you will, is.
Is that there are very few people terminated from here. Yes. But there are a lot of people that leave cause they weed themselves out because of the high level of, of expertise and customer quality that we, we demand and expect Absolutely doesn't, doesn't exist at a lot of other companies that they were at before.
And they come in and realize the expectations. I, I think, I think I need to go work someplace easier. We've also
had people that have had opportunities to go elsewhere and they get to other places and five, six months down the road, they come back. Yeah. That didn't really work out. I come back.
I got one of those phone calls yesterday.
Yeah. Yeah. And that, that makes me happy. And, and I like the fact that we, we usually leave. You know with the bird with the bridge not burned And we have had a lot of people go and try other things and tom welcomes it Like he says he wants everybody to succeed I can think of at least a half a dozen people that Have outgrown their spot here and tom has literally helped them to get their own license and go out and go out and in Help the community.
I know, I know that one of, you know, as we've, as we've grown as well, , one of the greatest things and Tom and I have spoke about this is watching a guy. Purchase his first home.
Yes.
, put his roots in and become a pillar of the community and, and represent, representing us at the same time is such a blessing.
Yes. And that is, you know, I'll talk about this a little bit, but one of the things that, A lot of people don't know that Tom, the owner of our company is a bit of a mathematical savant, you know, it's, it's well known here, but we, you know, it's, it's not, it's not uncommon for Tom to come in and take a full day and talk finances and teach everyone to, you know, to understand how money works.
Yeah. And it's one of those things that he recognizes that, you know, a lot of, a lot of people didn't get the opportunity to learn that in school or, you know, Growing up in their family. So, I mean, personally speaking from my, , not going too far off in the weeds, he's really helped me to understand how to, you know, how to use money as a, as a tool.
And I'm pretty. Pretty happy about that. So shifting back to James, by the way, , he has a couple of nicknames here. If you don't mind me sharing, I personally call him figsbecause he, he grew up on a fig, fig ranch and used to bring figs into all of us all the time. And that was, fun. And now he's, adopted.
A new, a new nickname, pancakes and he'll, if you, if you see him on the streets or in the grocery store, he'll probably have a signed, assigned a picture for you. , I see him regularly pass out, but James, tell me, we talked a little bit about 1. 0 where we used to be 2. 0 where we're at now. Where do you see Lee's there in a couple of years from now?
I see us even larger than we are. I see. You know, as we're moving forward, the industry is changing. Absolutely. , you know, when I started, started here, you know, R 22 was refrigerant. R four 10 A was the new guy on the block. Now we're transferring to these A two L refrigerants. We're having to retrain our techs for these new refrigerants as things change.
We've got to grow and adapt with it because if we don't grow and adapt, we get left in the dust and that's not what we're about. So I see us moving forward, growing, being even more of a presence here in the central Valley, than we are now, being able to expand even further, north and south, to other cities that are just outside of our reach right now.
, I see us growing to the point where , I would say from Bakersfield to Sacramento. We're going to be a major presence.
Yeah, and I was going to jump in earlier and say this, but I’ll just do it now , we have We have moved into the Sacramento market And there is lee's air Sacramento now and we have moved into the Visalia market as well As we look to take care of Take care of customers at a more, well, for lack of a better word, global basis.
So, a lot of customers that we have that live here have businesses in other towns in different areas. And we have got several companies that we take care of multiple locations. So, we have to have the ability to scale up and have people in other places. So, James not only takes care of the large amount of work here, but he also,, Leads and facilitates a lot of the.
The staff is doing an amazing job with the work that we are doing. Or not a real patient guy. No, no. So, when I come, when I have a need, I go marching into his office and I don't realize that he already has seven needs ahead of me. And,, you know, I bull my way in, but, it's, and I accept it very well all the time, don't I?
No, not all the time, but, but you do accept it. So, yes, it's very important to us that. You know, one of the things that I'm going to say here is, is I'm incredibly proud of is, Lee's air pulls permit on everything. Yes. Lee's air follows all the rules as far as refrigerant goes. Absolutely. We are actually, we have an in house Proctor master trainer that's doing those trainings you're talking about.
So, I see guys in our training room being, going, going through the training process and testing process all the time, which is great., but, , also. You know, keeping the, keeping all of these vehicles licensed, insured, tagged,, you know, we have, , systems in place where we, you know, we're, we know where all the vehicles are at all times.
Yes. And we, and that really is a huge tool to help us. Not send somebody from this side of town to this side of town back to this side of town again, and we can use the software now to say, well, Mrs. Jones needs us now, and she's a half a mile away from this tech.
Yeah,
we're going to send him and all of that is a lot of work, you know, to make sure that all of the vehicles have everything that we need in them.
And now that you know, we're in such a litigious time in California. I do know that you have added cameras to work to where we can we have front and rear cameras now to where we were able to, keep an eye on things and knowing where people are is a huge tool
to
help. You know, cause ultimately at the end of the day, it's about taking care of people and serving people.
And there's a, there's a ton of infrastructure and things that go on behind the scenes. In order for us to have that van driving down 41. Yes, headed to Mrs. Jones's house and yes, and I want to thank you for that and I want to Help me shine a spotlight on what it is that we have to do
And I enjoy my job.
I enjoy coming in here the people I work with You know, yeah, there's days where it's stressful. It's that's typical but at the end of the day, I feel good about what I do., we have fun here. You know, we're able to laugh and joke and have a good time, but we work our tail ends off to get, to take care of our customers.
And at the end of the day, that's what matters most is taking care of our customers. And, you know, whether it's, as simple as replacing a capacitor or replacing a whole unit, we want to make sure that we do it right and take care of our customers so that they're happy. They're comfortable in our, in their home because nobody likes sitting in a home.
That's. 95 degrees on a hot summer day. And being miserable, they want to be comfortable and our, ours. Our main goal is to make sure that the people of this valley are comfortable in their homes.
Yeah, it's pretty interesting because I hear it all the time., competitors have talked to customers, et cetera, that, you know, Lee's Air is not local.
, that's why they've gotten so big. And it's amazing because we re we literally are that same company and we've just added layers, added layers and added layers, same ownership. Same core., you know, we have quite a few guys that have been here since, you know, since back when we were at our other shop on the other side of town that we outgrew, which is now a training center.
Yes. And it's, it's pretty amazing that throughout all of that, we haven't lost our vision of, of taking care of taking care of people.
And that's another thing that I give Tom credit for is, you know, some people, they, they jump out and they dive in real deep. And then all of a sudden, they find themselves in trouble.
Tom has grown little by little, very strategically in how he's done things so that we don't get ourselves into a situation where we've grown, grown too fast, too quickly, and then have trouble. , everything he does is strategic and he's done it in a manner to where we're able to keep up and keep moving forward.
, as we grow.
Yeah. So you, so you mentioned, you mentioned Josue,, earlier, our marketing genius here, you know, I, I remember, this is kind of going back to 1. 0 again. I remember at one point, you know, when I started here, we were called Lee's Accu Tech Service. Correct. And you know, it's, it's changed a lot since then, but I remember saying, you know, if I did the clipboard and went down to, to the, to the mall, I At fashion fair and asked a hundred people whose lee's accu-tech service was It would we would have gotten you know a pretty low number because we were all commercial We weren't really doing any print media.
No commercials It was a smaller company, but I feel like now if I was to send you down there James with a clipboard and ask a hundred people as they went by, I feel like the number would be Gosh, maybe even 90%. Yeah. And that, that attributes to a lot of hard work and, and, you know, dedication by our team to, to establish that presence, that market share here in Fresno.
Our
media presence is very big. There are not many times I can't, whether it's in a store, a restaurant, someplace like that, somebody could, Hey, you're the guy in the commercials. You're the guy on the billboards. And, you know, it, First off, it makes me be a better person because I know that people recognize me.
And so it makes me aware of how I act in public and make sure, you know, that I'm, you know, putting the right light on Lee's air. Cause you know, if people see someone acting badly in public and they know where that person works, then it's, Oh, why would I want to look at how this person acts. And so. It makes me a better person andI enjoy it.
I, I
representing the company.
I do. Thank you!
for representing me. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, when, when someone recognized me, I do the best I can to be a good ambassador for Lee's air. Yeah.
It reminds me of the, and I've gotten this call at least a dozen times, but the first time I got a call from one of my friends, frantically, Jeff, Jeff, I, I needed to call and tell you, I saw your, your billboard.
It was upside down. And I, and I just wanted to let you know that they really messed up and, and my response was, , thank you. I appreciate that. I want to ask you a question. What other billboards do you remember seeing today? And I got a pause on the phone. Okay, well, then it worked. Yeah, exactly. And so we've, you know, we've had our, our billboard campaign has been pretty tremendous.
We've had some really funny ones, some really, really innovative, ones, ones that made you think, but it speaks back to, you know, it's literally in our, in our company, company,, logo, is to have fun and our billboards are fun and people enjoy them. And I think we've even this year had another one that was upside down again.
Yes, we did. And I did get more calls. Yeah.
So, and you know, one of the things that, , with our marketing is thatwe want it to be something thatpeople will remember and like with the upside down billboard, you know, It sticks in people's heads. And, and that's, you know, there are those that, you know, we have those that don't like our, our advertising and that's, that's fine.
That's, but it's still,even if they don't like the, the billboards, it's in their head. They know who we are. Yeah. And, you know,
And then we're on our way.
Even if they, they don't care for our marketing, If we can take care of them as a customer, we will gladly do it with a smile on our face.
Sure. Okay. Well, thanks James.
, man, I'm excited to have you on here with this. I
enjoyed it. , I appreciate you asking me to be part of this. , as always, I want to promote Lee's, Because I believe this is a great company to work for. , I enjoy working here. The people I work with are great. , I do what I do to make sure that everybody here can do the job they do.
And Yeah, I'm on the behind the camera on the billboards, but at the end of the day, I'm behind the scenes doing the things that need to be done. So the people that work here can do the things they need to do to take care of our customers,
right? And I will say that on all of our commercials. Everyone that are in them are people that work here.
Absolutely. And you know, it's, it was interesting to me, interesting to me to hear that people thought you were, you were a, an actor. Yeah. I didn't think I was that good at it.Well, thanks. Thanks a lot for coming on this morning. And, , I'd like to have you back someday soon. Absolutely. Anytime you want.
Great. Well, this has been, , Lee's commercial corner. And today we really didn't talk commercial that much, but again, we, we have a full service commercial department here and. , if you have a business out there that you would like to get this type of service from, don't hesitate to call us or look at, look us up on our website and I want to wish you all a great day today.