Meet the Contractor: Mike Townsend, Veteran Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electric

Mike Townsend’s first job working with cooling systems wasn’t in residential HVAC. It was with heat-seeking missile heads, when he was an Army soldier.

With that weaponry, “You have to keep the sensor extremely cold for it to be able to pick up the heat signature of whatever it’s tracking,” he explained in an interview with Homepros. 

Catch up quick: After military service, at age 23, Townsend started a commercial HVAC company in Denver with a $10,000 loan from an uncle. He sold it at age 30 for $750,000. 

• He ran a remodeling outfit, spent five years in a leadership role at another Denver-based HVAC company, then founded Heart Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electric in March 2020 — right when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out.
• “We took on some really, really ugly debt,” including merchant cash advances, Townsend said, describing them as “a horrible trap” for any company. “It was literally guys with Russian accents who would threaten to come out and break your kneecaps.”
• Legal challenges followed. In 2023, Heart declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy to consolidate its debt, and in 2024, it was sold to a private investor. 

What’s happening: In 2025, Townsend founded Veteran Heating, Cooling, Plumbing & Electric in Denver with one investor. In just a year, it’s seen explosive growth.

• “We did our first million-dollar month [this] July. We did $1.2 [million] in August,” Townsend said.  
• In the coming year, Veterans is poised to open several new branches in Texas, he noted. 

The intrigue: When launching the company, Townsend aimed to solve the major problems that dogged the industry in recent years — remote work, supply chain challenges, rising costs. 

• He established some operational ground rules. First, any task that can be automated is — call answering, appointment booking, and job quoting are done using AI and a price book he customized with the help of a software developer. 
• If a task can’t be automated, it’s outsourced: Accounting is done by an AI-forward firm with fractional CFO services, and marketing is split among three companies — one each for social media, website/SEO, and Google/digital ads. 
• Veteran’s office-to-field staff ratio is about 1:8, Townsend said. He has just three W-2 admin staff in Denver and three in the Philippines, and a total headcount of 52. 

Yes, and: Job postings on Veteran’s website list a pay range of $72,800 to $200,000 for HVAC installers, service techs, and licensed plumbers and electricians. 

• Townsend said health, dental, and vision insurance for employees and their families is covered at 100 percent. There’s a four percent 401(k) match and unlimited PTO. 
• All-hands meetings are held biweekly, with catered breakfast. “We hand out thousands of dollars in cash,” Townsend said — bonuses for good reviews and membership sales. “I will never have service managers,” he said. “Service managers are adult babysitters.” 
• For each key leadership staffer, Veteran rents a $500-per-month private office in a co-working space near their home. That saves on real estate costs, and the locations show up online as Google Business locations, strengthening the digital presence. 

Of note: Townsend has found cost savings in content creation: “We tried using professional actors and it didn’t work, so unfortunately it’s my ugly mug on social media,” he said. 

• He estimates that 90 to 95 percent of jobs come through social media, putting his customer acquisition cost at $15, compared to the $200 to $300 industry average. 

Go deeper: Veteran purchases equipment directly from importers, placing orders of $100,000 at a time, eliminating distribution headaches, and “paying about half as much for equipment as any other company in Denver.”

• Townsend said he was inspired by Alex Hormozi’s book, $100M Offers, which advises creating a “grand slam offer” — a proposition so attractive that customers would feel dumb to decline it. 
• Veteran doesn’t charge fees for service calls and factors in various energy rebates, grants, and incentives that are available in Colorado, which can help save homeowners thousands of dollars. 
• “We’re making an offer that, if they’re going to replace their system, now’s the time and we’re the guys. I mean, there’s just no question.”

Yes, but: “We are doing a terrible job” of fleet management, Townsend said. 

• Vehicle acquisition has been challenging given the current lending environment. 
• Currently, “If the bank won’t write us a loan fast enough, we just go write a check for a van.”

The bottom line: “Most companies in this industry are trying to run a 55 percent gross profit margin or something in hopes of ending up at a 10 to 15 percent net,” Townsend said. “We can run a 40 percent gross profit margin and still run a 10 or 15 percent net. And it creates a scenario where nobody can compete with us on price.”

• He said customers like the brand and the value he brings. “If I’m going to try to play the same game as a $50 million private equity-owned company that’s got more money than God backing them up, I’m going to lose that game. I have to play a different game.”
• He added that he doesn’t yet know whether he’ll hold the business long-term, but it has him invigorated at age 51: “I still have all the energy, and I still wake up at 3 a.m., and I’m excited to get to work every day.”