Joe Williams is the President of Package Unit Pros, a company of commercial light HVAC experts. Their focus on light commercial HVAC removes additional worries and overstretched responsibilities, solely focusing on what they do best: giving their customers direct consultation and maintenance on the units needed. Joe has worked in the construction and HVAC for more than 20 years, designing and overseeing projects of up to $1 million.
Before Package Unit Pros, he was the General Manager at a mechanical contracting company.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Joe Williams recalls the procedures and protocols his company implemented to help customers in 2020
- How did Joe deal with the different COVID protocols in Sacramento and the San Francisco Bay Area?
- Joe reveals the origin of his company’s name
- Joe highlights the importance of building and maintaining relationships in the HVAC industry
- Why was it beneficial for Package Unit Pros to niche down in their market?
- The importance of small businesses in our current economy
- Joe recalls his college experience—and why he quit and opted for trade school instead
- Joe’s advice to those interested in HVAC or the construction industry: do your research and go for it
In this episode…
Service is the basis of every industry. From fashion to HVAC, these industries are built on performing expert services to benefit and enhance their customer’s lives. Joe Williams, President of Package Unit Pros, is no stranger to providing brilliant client services—and he believes that doing one thing well is the key to success.
In the week’s episode of Watching Paint Dry, host Greg Owens sits down with Joe Williams, President of Package Unit Pros. They discuss the benefits of trade as a career path, how Package Unit Pros has adjusted their business to keep their customers and employees safe, and the importance of small business in reviving the economy. Joe also shares his advice for anyone interested in the construction or HVAC industries. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Joe Williams on LinkedIn
- Package Unit Pros
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:32
Good morning, everyone. This is the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we’ve been talking to building owners, property owners, facilities managers, and all the contractors that support that entire industry, which is over a trillion dollar industry. And there’s all kinds of opportunities in it. My name is Greg Owens, and this is monstered by McCarthy Painting. McCarthy Painting does painting work throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, we paint both interior which is great on a day like today because it’s raining and exterior projects. And we’ve done work for companies like Autodesk Chase, Google did some work for another bank, First Bank, Abercrombie and Fitch, H&M stores, and many, many more. If you’d like to learn more about McCarthy Painting, you can go to McCarthypainting.com, or email us at info@McCarthyPainting.com And I’m really excited to talk to Joe Williams here this morning of Package Unit Pros, the President, one of the founders of Package Unit Pros, an HVAC. And we also have Katrina Stevenson on the call. And she sometimes chimes in, and she’s a employee of McCarthy. Welcome, Joe.
Joe Williams 1:51
W WThank you for having me. Yeah.
Greg Owens 1:53
What part of the Bay Area are you located in?
Joe Williams 1:55
Where our corporate headquarters is located in Hayward? We also have an office in Sacramento and cover the greater Bay Area and Sacramento corridor basically, yeah.
Greg Owens 2:07
And how are you and your family and your company doing this in this time, we’re still in this pandemic, it’s things are lightening up by here next week, we might even move the whole Bay Area Anyway, we’ll move into another tier with relaxed, maybe we can even eat inside.
Joe Williams 2:23
Yeah, it’s been challenging. I mean, you’re the first and the worst commercial contractor so that, you know, things are everybody’s a little different, whether you’re dealing with the residential side or on the floor, or there’s those companies that do a little above, right, but with five, when COVID first hit, everything got locked out. I mean, basically, everything was 100% down, we are essential to with some data centers, and medical device companies and stuff like that. So we’re essential services. So we’ve been open the whole time, we immediately put in, you know, emergency protocols to separate everybody in our office, you know, started going with all the science that we could find, you know, told us what, you know, what we needed to do to try and maintain the highest level of safety for all of our employees, as well as our customers. And so, you know, that’s a kind of a moving target. So it evolves a little bit, as you know, a new study comes out. But we’ve been fortunate enough that we’ve worked through the whole thing, although that first shut down boy, it was, you know, it was really tough. And I think a lot of that had to do with people just unclear on exactly what we were up against. And I think that’s really where we’re at. Now I you know, we’re we kind of know what we’re dealing with now. So everybody, you know, that kind of fears around, you know, we’re all going to die is not going to happen. And so I think a lot of that is now where people are like, Okay, this can be managed. And now we’re starting to see people open up and have more confidence. But I think a lot of it really has to do they have more confidence that they can go to the office and work safely and get back to business? And that, you know, that’s really I think that’s critical to getting us to that next year. And getting California back open again, and, you know, back into business.
Greg Owens 4:03
No, I think you’re so right on so many points there. We are all going to die, though, but not of COVID. Right. And that’s where I think where I think like there was so much fear that beginning piece and there still is a lot out there. And it’s still a very, you know, significant that ambiguity for what we as company owners had to go through of like, what do we do and what and trying to figure out the laws. I mean, this is it’s been a almost a year, a year for us anyway, March. I remember it was like March 17 that every day down late, and then it was like reading the guidelines from the CDC reading the guidelines of California and then trying to figure out like how we can come back to work and how we fit into this as a company. Definitely incredibly challenging time. It feels like it was so long ago to
Joe Williams 4:53
it does and I think a lot of us really we just want the best for our you know our team. We want to make sure there are Nice face, we want to make sure that our customers are safe that we’re protecting our customers, our clients, but but we do have a job to do you know. So we know those things are not mutually exclusive. Right? We can do both. So we can still do business and do it safely. And I think that that’s really where I think people are starting to come, you know, I’m happy about because, you know, this great state is not going to build itself. Now. It’s going to take people like us to get out there and roll up our sleeves and get going to make that happen.
Greg Owens 5:28
And I know that I actually wrote to Governor Newsome and to our state assembly men early on, and it’s because painting contractors were not essential in this it which is understandable. But on the other side of that we were like, wait a minute, we work in two man crews were outside we already have the gear, right? We can we know how to use it, we can we can really do this and get back to work safely. And it was so you know, it’s because we were shut down for at least like four or five weeks, I believe beginning of this, we had some projects that we were able to go and do because you know, the homeowners that were in the middle of like moving into their home, and they wanted to how safe right and so we were able to like tell the authorities that hey, this is an empty house homeowners trying to move in, they have kids, they want to make it lead safe, right? Those kinds of things definitely helped us in early part of this. And what you know, you’ve had to juggle between the two different locations to because there’s been different rules, right. So the San Francisco Bay Area’s had stricter rules this whole time, then Sacramento, have you found that to be somewhat of a challenge? Or was it easier to sort of like just have the same rules for both areas,
Joe Williams 6:42
we pretty much kept the same rules for both areas. Although, you know, there were more clients that were open in Sacramento in business. So you know, our focus, you know, from an HVAC standpoint, a lot of COVID had to do with And so making sure that, you know, we immediately put processes in place, so that when we’re our technicians are going out and performing these preventative maintenance agreements that we do, we immediately put in CD guidelines of fresher standards, and other things that we could make sure that you know, when these buildings were reoccupied, if they weren’t already, did, they already have the current we’re meeting all the current standards. So it’s kind of unfortunate, and a lot of ways of how this was handled, I think, you know, hindsight is always 2020. But I think in a, from a sense of, you know, the shutdown and the lockdowns and who’s essential and who’s not. And I think it really could have been handled a lot better, I’m more of the school of thought that everyone has a job that does an essential job, you know, and there’s a way that we can discuss to make those jobs stay, you can have grocery stores open, and everybody can shop at Walmart. And we should be able to be able to paint the house or service and aircon and still make that equally as safe as some of the other, you know, some of the other people that provide different levels of services. So who am I to say that a pest control company is not essential? If I have an ant invasion, so you know, I think it would be been better served a little bit more fluid with the guidelines, as it relates to each region, you know, I’m not naive to say that, you know, we’re not going through a huge COVID spike, that maybe, you know, maybe you know, sheltering in place on a temporary basis would be a good decision. But you know, I think that there’s, you know, you still have to leave that there’s a lot of flexibility, you can just put people in one bucket and say, okay, you know, all painters need to stop painting, right, that’s, you know, you’re not essential. There is work in there, that is essential. And I think, as business owners, you know, we understand the gravity of, you know, of the, you know, the crisis and pandemic, and we understand how to keep our people safe. And I think we’re, you know, we listen to our team, we really under, you know, we value every single one of them, he and you know, and you know, making sure that they have a wonderful career and a safe place to work. And I think that we can do that better than necessarily those edicts kind of coming from Sacramento. That’s just kind of my personal opinion on it. And I think it shows now I mean, look at all the businesses that are open, you know, we know what to do, we know what to do to try and keep it and we understand the risk factor and those of our teams. So I think we’re better to make that decision, I think then maybe somebody in Sacramento that doesn’t understand all the complexity of our economy, California,
Greg Owens 9:18
because of my painters not having to work to go do that conscientious people, and conscientious people don’t sit still, it’s not like they’re just gonna sit and watch TV all day long and do be they’re gonna, you know, if they can’t come to work for us, they were probably like, going out and meeting with friends and doing other things that, you know, could have spread this thing more so in a lot of ways, right? Whereas if we are coming to work for us, we’re like, no dedicated two person teams. Here’s all your safety gear, the training we need around it and all this stuff and you’re giving them something to do like painting a house or doing working on a building with their hv equipment. What have you seen so well, let’s back up a little bit. Where did the name Package Unit Pros come from? And how did you get started.
Joe Williams 10:05
So my business partner and I, we worked for another company for for years and years, we actually thought we were going to probably retire there. And one day the owner decided to come in and, you know, change things around and it wasn’t in a customer entered directionally felt was, you know, kind of what we built our whole careers on. So we ended up leaving, and then my business partner and I actually were sitting in a bar about four years prior to that, and he was saying, you know, we what we need to do is we need to get focused on a package, basically, the little square boxes that you see, as you drive down the freeway, and you look up on the top of the building. And, and they’re, they’re basically buildings, two storeys and under, and after we decided to, you know, to leave it, I said, he saw that napkin with the, you know, with the where we are drawing on that, you know, what we would want to do if we started on air conditioning company, and, and he’s, I think I do, and we tested out the plan. And two months later, we’re in business. And our first year in business, we were listed by the Silicon Valley Business Journal was one of the top HV service providers. And we’ve been on that list ever since that first year. So we’re fortunate that like, a lot of us in the service business, you know, it’s all about building relationships and taking care of people. That’s really what you know, what it comes down to, you know, you guys are expected to do a great job painting, we’re expected to do a great job at air conditioning, maintenance and service. But it’s really those, you know, if you have a problem, it’s my problem, I’ll take care of it. And you don’t have to worry about it, you know, and taking care of people is really the business that we’re in. And that we’re fortunate enough that after years and years years of doing that, we were had a lot of people that found out we started our own company, and then decided to come over to our company. So it’s, it’s heartfelt, to be quite honest, when you you don’t really know how things are going to go when you start a business. And and when you have a bunch of people that say, Hey, we have competence, and you’ve always taken care of us, and we’re willing to take this journey with you. It’s
Greg Owens 11:57
Yeah, it’s so true. And are you still doing buildings that are two storeys? Or did you get into the taller into San Francisco skyscrapers and that kind of thing?
Joe Williams 12:08
Yeah, I have a lot of experience with those types of facilities. But I like the little niche that we’re in, you know, it’s basically all our guys work on this equipment all the time, we have all the tools for this type of equipment. We don’t have, you know, we don’t have to work on boilers and chillers and big, you know, big industrial type of equipment, they require special, you know, more specialized labor, I guess, would be the best way to say it, and, and also all the tools and extra insurance and everything else. So because we have that kind of targeted market, we’re able to save our clients, traditionally about 20 or 30% over a standard mechanical contractors because they have all those extra overheads that they have to carry. So nothing against them. They’re great. You have a high story price building, you need to have that specialized, you know, company, but for us, you know, I use the analogy. It’s like, yeah, you don’t want to bring a dump truck to the grocery store. Right? That’s not the right tool that you need for the job, though.
Greg Owens 13:03
Yeah, it’s so it’s so true. And it’s so good these days, I think as a small companies specialize, right? We can’t be all things to all people. And I know as us as a painting company, we turn down any kind of new other companies have all of that, because they’re better at it. They’re more equipped for it. We’re really good at coming into occupied offices at night on weekends when we don’t have to do nights and, and doing the painting so that when the employees show up, they didn’t even know we were there. They’re just like, wow, look, the walls are different color today. Looks great to see. So good. And I don’t smell pain, right? And so and that’s our specialty, right? We go in and do that. And we have to we have to say no to a lot a tremendous amount of projects. Sometimes it drives my office crazy, because they’re, they’re like, hey, these are these sounds like really good opportunities, though. No, that’s, that’s for others, they can do that. Right? That’s so great. And I would think to, I can just imagine that the in that range and the type of work you’re doing. It’s much newer equipment and a lot of ways not these old, like integrated boilers and HVAC. See, like, some of the buildings I’ve been in San Francisco are so old that there’s such sort of a hodgepodge of different HVAC equipment. It’s got to be super hard to figure out.
Joe Williams 14:20
Yeah, I mean, I have an engineering background a little bit. So that does help but yeah, we see a mix of it. It’s funny because you know, everyone thinks of like packaging and buildings as being a smaller market, but it’s actually 68% of the Bay Area’s packaged unit facility. So ironically happens to be the largest market that we singled out but it’s not something that it’s not super sexy, right so a lot of mechanical contract is not the Adobe it’s not Apple, it’s not the you know, that you can put on your website and stay We service the people, a lot of them are just little small businesses like ours. And and you know, that’s our bread and butter and I’d be honest, I really liked doing business with those types of companies because he developed a real passion There’s no relationship. Well, I mean, I have clients, I’ve seen their kids grow up, you know, go off to college and, you know, be successful in their own right. And having that kind of personal relationship. I think with that with people makes business a lot more fun and enjoyable.
Greg Owens 15:14
Did you have a question Katrina, you look like
Katrina Stevenson 15:18
an office, and we have a painter standing. So I’m going to be muting. But I just wanted to say that small businesses matter to
Greg Owens 15:26
Oh, for sure, for sure. I
think I think the government really recognized that during this shutdown with amount of help they’ve given the small biz, it’s pretty amazing, because for a longest time, I always thought the way the government looked at small business was they started at 500 million, right? Yeah, that was that, or 5050 to 500 million is their idea what small business was all the time, right. And there’s a lot more underneath that. So it’s really great to see them paying attention to it and helping us out. It’s time.
Joe Williams 15:56
Well, I said it before a few in the Bay Area that, you know, which we’re we’re we’re predominantly based. But, you know, those small businesses are what gets us through our boom and bust cycle. So you know, we are still in California is still a gold rush, you know, we go through the boom and bust cycles as part of our, you know, economic, you know, economy. And when the economy does, you know, his challenges, it’s all those little small businesses that buckle down and keep the doors open. And that kind of stuff, that’s the larger companies, you know, the Facebook’s and the Googles, mostly, they just lay off, you know, 20,000 people, and they, you know, downsize. But it’s the small businesses that are the little engine chugging along, that keeps our economy going through those, you know, those downsides, but we do need to focus and remember that, because when we do get to one of those things in our economy, when we’re going to go through a challenge, it’s the small buckle down businesses that are the ones that are going to keep us going.
Greg Owens 16:52
Yeah, and there’s so many things about that, too, because I know, we’ve been focused on doing a lot more commercial work over the last bunch of years. And then during this time, we had to pivot really fast and really up our game in the residential industry, right, because I could see it, and we can make that pivot really fast. And I’m really fortunate that we can do that, because that’s where a lot of the work was going on. And as buildings were shutting down, and they weren’t allowing us to go in those building. So love to hear your thoughts on finding good employees, particularly mechanics, because I it’s something that I’ve been thinking a lot about, and there’s certain people that are good at their job. And it can do, we can have them paint, and we can have them. And they’re unbelievably great artists, they can really, you know, paint rooms without getting paint on the things you’re not supposed to get pain on and that kind of stuff. But then there’s other types of individuals that we sometimes look for that are really good problem solver, and mechanically inclined. And that seems to be harder to find for me these days. And I only need a few of them. But I can only imagine that you in your industry, you need a lot more of that mechanical, so you know, some type of kid that would grow up and take something apart just to like, learn about it and put it back together just for the fun of it. Right? Have you how do you find those kind of people? And have you seen any changes in that?