HVAC industry vet Greg Crumpton reflects on his time in the industry

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As an industry, we’re very slow to react to automation and digitization because it’s not proven. We’re an industry of “prove it to me” kind of people… But I think that’s changing.

Greg Crumpton is a Vice President at Service Logic, an entrepreneur, investor, and HVAC industry veteran.

We talked about his observations over the past 20 years, the industry’s big changes, technology, and more. Our conversation has been slightly edited for clarity.

You’re widely known in the industry. What’s your story?

My father was in the mechanical services business. I was a horrible student in school; I got by but didn’t give enough of a crap to apply myself. Early on, I had a natural ability to work with my hands. I started as a service tech, went through a 4-year apprenticeship program, and worked at the same firm as my dad.  

Eventually, I said, “Daddy, I need to quit and go do other stuff.” So, I went to work for York for 2 years — I had a blast over there and learned a ton. Then I went to a controls company, and then a little mom-and-pop company before ending up back at my original company and was able to work alongside my dad. I told him I was ready to come home. That was a special time for both of us.

Now you’re at Service Logic. How’d you end up there?

In September 1999, we opened our own company — me, my wife, and one technician. It was a blast, we opened it in our garage bonus room.

We mostly did mission-critical data infrastructure work, grew it to $12 million in revenue, made a bunch of money in that vertical, had some very amazing people working there, and in Q4 of 2014, sold it to Service Logic. At the time, Service Logic was around $150 million in revenue, and now it’s around $2 billion with over 7,500 people. 

You’ve seen a lot of change in the industry since then. What’s something that’s surprised you over the past twenty or so years?

Oddly enough, I’m surprised at what hasn’t happened. As an industry, we’re very slow to react to automation and digitization because it’s not proven. We’re an industry of “prove it to me” kind of people.

But I think that’s changing. As the Boomers have moved through the industry, and as we’re becoming more driven by X’ers and seeing how digital the Y-generation is, it’s going to escalate a lot quicker, and I’m very proud of that. 

It’s kind of like building a company — you have your foundational leaders who get it up to a certain level, and now you need to bring in your growth leadership. I think that’s where we are as an industry. We’ve proven that digital controls actually work.

What do you think, say, two of the big technology catalysts are now?

One of them is XOi. As Aaron Salow, the guy who started it says, “curb-to-curb” — so everything between when a technician gets to the curb of a house or building and when he gets back to the truck. Capturing that curb-to-curb trip and giving people tools that work and that they’re comfortable with. For example, taking a picture of a nameplate, it [the software platform] goes out and collects, and it starts pushing data to you, the technician. Any piece of equipment that you take a picture of the nameplate of data is now flowing to your tablet, and that’s huge.

And I think the onset of user-friendly predictive maintenance tools, too. A product I’m watching closely is nClarity. What Jim and his team are doing over there is revolutionary for the trade. Picture this, you have a building that has 12 air conditioners on it, and you have them fitted with a box the size of a phone that’s continuously gathering and spitting data on that unit back to your office. 

We’re able to send “Randi” to that building because units #6 and #8 aren’t performing as they should — instead of going and putting his gauges on every unit, we’re only working on #6 and #8. With tools like that, we’re better from an efficiency and efficacy standpoint. 

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I don’t think you can overexpress the need for training on an ongoing basis. It’s all about people and labor.

Have any more?

I think the third is refrigerant management. Our new gases in commercial HVAC are R-454B and R-32 — both mildly flammable, carrying the A2L designation. Having to understand the nuances of working with those is of the utmost importance. And equally or more so is the management of all the R-410A and R-22 that’s still out in the world, and ensuring our reclamation processes are tight and right — keeping them clean and separate, and taking them back to be reclaimed. Having an excellent grasp on the 3 R’s of refrigerant is a difference maker.

And just being more professional about the refrigerant management that we, as an industry, have been sloppy on in the past. Reclamation companies, like Hudson Technologies, would get a cylinder back from a contractor and there’d be 3 or 4 gases in there… they can’t even separate it when it’s that contaminated. All that does is erode our stockpile of existing gas.

If you’re a contractor nowadays, what do you need to be thinking about?

Making sure that you hire and budget to hire a full-time employee to educate other people continuously. You gotta have “www.youruniversity.com”. Maybe that’s a consortium of five smaller contractors who come together or maybe it’s a partnership. 

With the incoming generation of talent, the bulk of people aren’t gonna go to school at night on their own time or on their own nickel. If you read about 22-year-olds, they want to be heard and they want to be taken care of. So, education within our own doors, however you want to build it. You must build that into your DNA. I don’t think you can overexpress the need for training on an ongoing basis. It’s all about people and labor.

Do you have any counterintuitive philosophies or best practices when it comes to scaling a contracting business?

My unwritten rule is, “Make them happy and make them over the top with everything but the price.” I worked so hard at delivering quality that price was rarely an issue for us. We grew because of relationships. As a crazy example, I’d buy 100 umbrellas in a year, take them downtown, put them in every umbrella stand and restaurant, and leave them so people could take them. People would tie our company back to those whacky umbrellas — that in and of itself started more than one conversation, then that may have led to a long-term relationship. Guerilla marketing, I love.

There are a million ways to grow a company, but mine was through service and community. We were involved; it all stemmed from people. Relationship building is germane to growing a business — for me, it’s always been service and detail.

Anything else on your mind that I haven’t asked you about?

I mean, I spend my time thinking about relationships and growing people. Part of my job at Service Logic is coordinating our 55 or so safety managers, and I think it’s so cool to be true to our companies — we do so by doing what we agreed to do when we acquired them. 

We’re counterintuitive as a PE-backed company because we don’t destroy the culture, we keep the nuances [of the businesses]. I love nurturing those relationships down to one tech, in one building, in one zip code. I don’t think that’s anything earth-shattering, but we’re working hard to do the right thing.