Like the companies of several other successful, nationally known entrepreneurs, Tom Boylan’s Lakeside Service Co. Inc. had humble beginnings.
Boylan started the company in 1983 out of the basement of his home in Pinckney, Michigan. Before long, he moved into the garage he built with the help of his first employee — his brother-in-law (who just recently retired). In 1990, he moved Lakeside into new digs in Brighton, Michigan, where it remains today and has expanded its footprint a couple of times.
Lakeside, known for its integrity and customer service, is the top residential contractor in the inaugural group of HVAC All Stars, a new ACHR NEWS awards program. The honor comes after Boylan’s April induction into the Carrier Dealer Hall of Fame and his company’s 15th consecutive Carrier President’s Award.
“Lakeside Service Company Inc. stands out due to its unwavering commitment to customer service and excellence. Tom Boylan’s leadership has been guided by the principle that anything worth doing is worth doing right,” said Kelsey Taylor, a Carrier communications manager who nominated Lakeside for the award. “The company has consistently focused on handling issues effectively and going the extra mile to fix them.”
– Tom Boylan
founder
Lakeside Service Co.
Boylan is respected in the community and the HVAC industry, Taylor said, and is committed to giving back, including by raising money to fund Alzheimer’s research.
Boylan, a modest, soft-spoken man, says a focus on customer satisfaction and regular employee training has been the key to Lakeside’s success.
“The company, right from the beginning, has always been built on education and customer satisfaction,” Boylan said during an interview at Lakeside’s headquarters. “It’s been our catchphrase: Customer satisfaction always comes first. … And it’s always been like that.”
Lakeside, a factory-authorized Carrier dealer, has close to 50 employees, and its shop includes 12 service technicians, 10 installers, a sheet-metal fabricator, and three plumbers. There are about 30 company vehicles on the road. Its work is mostly residential, but it does handle some light commercial jobs.
All Lakeside technicians are certified by North American Technician Excellence (NATE) and certified by the National Comfort Institute (NCI) in static pressure, airflow, and combustion testing.
“We’ve really good training protocols and (a) really good mentorship program,” said John Boylan, Tom Boylan’s son and Lakeside’s general manager. “And we found, if you find the right guy … he’s got a good attitude, and you give them good teachers … usually it’s easy. It’s easier to build them than it is to find them.”
The elder Boylan was introduced to the industry by his father, who, while working as a milkman, joined a coworker in doing refrigeration jobs as a sideline.
“They saw a need, because they’re delivering to stores and that sort of thing,” he said. “They got coolers, and they just decided they’d give it a shot.”
Before founding Lakeside, Tom Boylan worked for a residential contractor in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and in the heating and plumbing department at the Brighton public schools. He also studied at Washtenaw Community College.
He’s seen a lot of changes in equipment and technology over more than 40 years in the business. A system’s components were simpler, and fewer, and the units were larger, when he started out.
“The units we used to replace were unbelievably big. Lot of gravity furnaces when I was in Ann Arbor,” he said. “When the 83% furnaces came out … we thought that was big technology back then.”
But technology advanced quickly, he said, and when Lennox introduced its Pulse high-efficiency furnace, “everybody started getting into the 90% efficient stuff.”
Repairs were more common years ago, he said, because they were cheaper to do.
“It’s getting now where, I mean, you get a 10-year warranty on parts, on new equipment, and after that warranty is gone, some of the repairs are so high that it just makes a lot more sense to just replace units,” he said.
John Boylan said homeowners now are getting more attuned to the latest HVAC technology, prompted in part by incentives such as the energy-efficiency rebates offered by the state of Michigan through the federal Inflation Reduction Act. They’re curious about heat pumps and asking for smart thermostats, he said.
Tom Boylan gave a shoutout to Carrier for helping to hone his business acumen.
“I knew nothing about business when I started my business, so I did a lot of lot of training. Carrier had some really good training,” he said.
“Without that education … I would’ve been one guy going around fixing stuff ‘til I retired,” he added.
HONORABLE MENTION: Magnolia Heating & Cooling, based in Riverside, California, won an honorable mention in residential contracting category in the inaugural group of ACHR NEWS HVAC All-Stars. (Courtesy of Magnolia Heating & Cooling)