The owners of Air Conditioning Specialists and Armitage Heating & Cooling are joining forces to offer a complete line of heating and air conditioning services to the community.
Bob Armitage, owner of Armitage Heating & Cooling, and Casey Crist, owner of Air Conditioning Specialists, decided to combine their businesses to offer more services and retain customers. Both have experienced rapid business growth and needed some extra help.
Armitage has been in business for 30 years and Crist off and on for 33 years. The two have had a long-standing friendship and have helped each other through the years in their businesses.
“We’ve always covered for each other,” Armitage said. “With us both being self-employed it’s nice to have somebody else to bounce ideas (off).”
Crist agreed and said the two have never been competitors.
“We’ve never worried about stabbing each other in the back,” he said.
Armitage said he has been self-employed and his business has grown so much that he couldn’t accommodate all the customers. Crist has a few people working for him and also works at the fire department. His business has experienced so much growth that they couldn’t keep up. Thus, the partnership was born.
“This is something you expect to see in a better economy,” Crist said. “Here we are in some kind of recession with the economy and we’re both doing very well.”
Crist, who has worked for 28 years in law enforcement or at the fire department, said the merger of the two businesses will come at the right time when he is no longer working at the fire department.
Both business owners bring something to the table. One can specialize in residential and one can specialize in commercial.
“... I’m really looking forward to this. I’m looking forward to working with Bob. This is going to work out really well because we can each concentrate on our specialty areas,” Crist said.
Armitage and Crist also have lots of parts between the two of them as well and their suppliers are on board with the merger. Both Armitage and Crist have buying power strengths.
Together, the two will offer a full-line residential and commercial HVAC shop which will include new construction, commercial, residential, equipment change-outs and 24-hour service.
“We can make your 80-year-old house as confortable as you want it,” Crist said.
Armitage and Crist will maintain their separate company names for the time being with the same phone numbers. A name change could come in the spring or summer of 2010.