Franchising Move Heats Up

gmtoday:

On those cold mornings when the furnace is strangely silent or the boiler seems to be making a cantankerous gurgling noise, local homes and businesses are likely to call on a familiar and reliable face to make things right again.

Except that when Mike Collins arrives, he’s dressed a little bit differently and he drives a pretty nice, new white truck. “Yeah, those are the two things that people seem to notice right off the bat,” said Collins, operations manager for Cedarburg’s Aire Serv Heating and Air Conditioning of Ozaukee County.

In April, Collins converted his business from Champion to Aire Serv, a franchise that provides installation, maintenance and heating of air conditioning and indoor air quality systems. “I was actually the first franchise in Wisconsin, and it’s been a good change for my business,” he said. “I had reached the point in my life and my career where I wanted to build a business instead of just being self-employed, and I’ve already been able to hire one employee.”

Collins has more than 25 years of experience in the industry, and got his start in 1973 in the Navy. Read on.