Thirty years ago Bill Hayes couldn’t have imagined where he is today, even though he figured out what field he would pursue early on.
As owner of Turnbull Heating and Air Conditioning, Hayes is celebrating his 30th year in business and the 55th anniversary of the founding of his company.
Hayes grew up in Rochester and joined the Navy, serving for six years. He pretty much knew where his career path would take him when he enrolled at Alfred State College to study heating and air conditioning. He also met his wife Jo Ann there.
They married, settled in Lackawanna and had two children, who were 5 and 7 when Hayes got the opportunity to take over Turnbull Heating and Air Conditioning.
Turnbull Heating and Air Conditioning had been started in 1966 by Batavia native Roy Turnbull, who was working in Buffalo for a mechanical contractor when he decided to go in business for himself, working at his home at 7 Roosevelt St. In 1970 he relocated to the Harvester Building and incorporated in 1972.
“It was a four-or five-man operation until I took over in 1991,” Hayes said. “Roy had a part-time bookkeeper, himself and four mechanics.”
It was a twist of fate in which Hayes and Turnbull met.
“I was working as vice president of a heating and air conditioning company in Buffalo, which was a York dealer,” Hayes said. “Roy was also a York dealer. When my boss died at a young age in 1989, his wife was grieving and gave a trip they had planned to a York convention in the Grand Cayman Islands to Jo Ann and I. That’s where I met Roy.”
Years later when Turnbull was in the process of selling his company to two of his employees and retiring, Hayes wasn’t even in the picture, he said, until Turnbull’s negotiations with his employees fell through.
“We had kept in touch since the trip, and one day Roy called and asked what I was doing,” Hayes said. “I told him I was getting ready to make a lateral move somewhere, and he said, ‘Wait a minute. How would you like to live in Batavia?' I had kids 5 and 7 and lived only three streets from my mother-in-law, but I went home and asked my wife how she’d like to live in Batavia.”
Her answer was “No way,” Hayes said.
“But the next morning over coffee, she said, ‘You know, I never want to be the one to blame for our saying ‘What if we had moved to Batavia?’ ”
Hayes took a week’s vacation, during which time he rode on calls with Turnbull.
“It was scary to jump ship to another company,” Hayes said. “Nobody in Batavia knew me. But Roy and I agreed on some terms and he gave me a note and I paid off the business in 10 years. I signed the papers on Feb. 1, 1991, and the next day Roy went on vacation to Myrtle Beach (S.C.) and stayed three months. He said if I had any questions to call him.”
Hayes commuted from Lackawanna for a year and a half, always on call for emergency calls. In October, 1992, Hayes moved his family to Batavia.
Turnbull Heating and Air Conditioning has seen gradual growth under Hayes’ ownership. In 1997 he started A-1 Sheet Metal to make plenums and duct work and to accommodate the do-it-yourselfers. Hayes said their motto was “Do it yourself with our help.”
When Hayes bought the business, it occupied 400 square feet of office space and 2,000 square feet of shop. They had expanded to 20,000 square feet when landlord Tom Mancuso came to Hayes one day and said, “I have a building opportunity for you at 50 Franklin St.”
Hayes moved the business there in August 2007.
“It was the best thing I ever did,” he said.
As a full-service heating, air conditioning and commercial refrigeration dealer, today Hayes’ company has 18 trucks on the road, with 26 full- and part-time employees.
With business growing throughout Western New York, especially in Rochester and Livingston County, in 2002, Hayes opened a satellite office in Avon to serve as a sales office and parts depot.
Photo by Howard Owens.
