Heart and Excellence: an ORIGIN story
Hey, I’m Richie the owner, and if you’re wondering “how DID One Hour Myrtle Beach become the greatest heating and air conditioning company on planet Earth? Is it sheer EXCELLENCE? Is it pure HEART?”
Fair questions! But the answer is really found on a dusty page of Americana, three generations ago on a Depression Era dirt farm. That’s where my grandfather Samuel Herbert “Sammy” Drew grew up.
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STARTING A “BUSINESS?”
An offshore oil platform accident killed several workers and ended Sammy’s oil career. So he moved to Myrtle Beach and began repairing and maintaining air conditioning and heating systems at the Myrtle Beach Air Force Base. Then he worked as a maintenance and repair man for the famous Chapin Company of Myrtle Beach. But in his free time, he would still fix people’s window units, refrigerators and such, though he rarely charged money for it. He just did what he loved, fixing things for people.
In 1978, my father Richard Drew was a Myrtle Beach police officer making $98 a week, trying to raise a family. He helped his father Sammy with the repair work in a small shop behind Sammy’s house. My dad kept saying they should open a REAL service company, to serve all the residents of the Myrtle Beach area. He was ambitious and young, and Sammy was a man that could fix anything.
But Sammy didn’t care much about profits and success. It was often said that Sammy Drew would give you the shirt off of his back if you needed it.
I was 5 years old in 1978 and remember being in my grandfather Sammy’s workshop, with the smell of oil and the sound of the air compressor kicking on and off. My mother would laugh at the things she would find in my pockets after I’d spent the afternoon “helping” grandpa: wire nuts, screws, wiring, and bolts…
He and I had a very special bond, and I know the way I treat customers today comes from the way both my father and I learned to treat people, from my grandfather Sammy.
Sammy died of a heart attack in 1978, in his sleep after attending my graduation from Vacation Bible School. It was the last time I heard him laugh or saw him smile. I can vividly remember holding on tight as he would carry me on his back, galloping like a horse while I was laughing. It was a devastating blow to the Drew family.
DREAMS OF MY FATHER
So the two split and in 1983 Dad started Myrtle Beach Heating & Cooling. Over the next 14 years, he created a successful company taking great care of his customers and making money. He’d established a good reputation in the community. In large part, he did it for Sammy.
WHERE I COME IN
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I said, “HECK yeah.”
I knew with everything I’d learned over the last 18 years that I could grow this business into one of the most successful One Hour franchises in the country. So I purchased the business in June of 2013.
BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME
I had come full circle, and found myself a business owner like my father, except this was different: I hadn’t built it from scratch like he did. When I purchased it, it was already doing $5m in annual sales. It had 37 employees that had to be taken care of, as well as thousands of customers.
To serve customers as well as he did, I would have to do things differently than a “corporate approach.” I knew I had to make the lives of my employees better. The good technicians were underappreciated, and they didn’t earn enough money. The heart incentives that lead to excellence were missing.
So I made it my mission to raise the value and worth of a great HVAC tech. I pay my people better than anyone in the industry. Turnover is rare. I go to great lengths to make my employees feel like family and we create a culture where they come first.
Because we know: it’s happy employees that make happy customers!
EXCELLENCE is what we want our customers to experience.
But without HEART there can be no excellence.
This is our identity, who we are as a company that wins both employees and customers.
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That same heart goes back three generations, to Sammy’s philosophy: “Always do the right thing. Because it’s the right thing to do.”
When Sammy met someone down on their luck who truly needed help, he would provide it. So now, when we have a customer in need and they’re afraid they can’t afford our service they call me or one of my managers because they know the heart of our business. We love to fix things, for people who need our help.
When you focus on doing good work, trying to make customers’ lives better, at the end of the day you WIN.
I believe this. So did Sammy.
THEN ALONG CAME A MARTY
My Operations Manager Marty, a firebrand of excellence, worked with me at Direct Energy back in the day. When I bought Myrtle Beach I immediately called Marty and said “you HAVE to come help me with this Marty. I need someone who really GETS it, that connection between heart and excellence.
I knew Marty would focus in on all the details of delivering excellence and do it with heart. This has allowed me to focus on keeping the heart of the company true, and on a purposeful course. It has turned out to be a great combo.
We have grown One Hour Myrtle Beach from a $5 million business into a $25 million dollar business in nine years.
That is straight from the heart growth, through excellence in what we really do: We fix things for people who need our help. I’m so proud of my team.
Sammy is up there somewhere. And I like to think he’s smiling.
-Richie Drew
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