Some workdays are routine. Every so often, one isn't.
A couple of weeks ago, one of our installers, Jagger, headed out to a home here in the valley for a heating and air install. Nothing unusual about the job, it's the kind of call he runs all the time. He parked, grabbed his tools, walked up, and knocked.
When the door opened, the two of them just stopped and looked at each other.
The homeowner was his 5th grade teacher from Heritage Community Charter School in Nampa. And she had kept his class photo all these years.
She dug out the original picture and held it up next to him. The kid who'd sat in her classroom had grown up into the young man now installing her new system. Both of them grinning ear to ear. You can't script a day like that.
We mean it when we say "local"
We put "family-owned" and "locally rooted" on our website, same as every other shop in town. Days like this are the difference between the words and the real thing. We're not a chain. Nobody gets flown in from a corporate office two states away. The person who answers your call, pulls into your driveway, and works on your equipment grew up here, went to school here, and plans to stick around.
Jagger came up through Heritage Community Charter School, got into the trades out of high school, and has been learning HVAC with us ever since. He's exactly the kind of young tradesperson the valley needs more of, and we're glad he's on the crew.
A word for the teachers
Here's something we don't say enough: thank you to the teachers around the Treasure Valley who turn these kids into the adults we get to work alongside.
You don't usually get to see how it turns out. You teach a ten-year-old, send him on his way, and rarely find out what becomes of him. Then one summer he shows up at your door to put in your AC. It doesn't happen often, but it happened to us, and it made our whole week.
To Jagger's teacher: thank you for whatever you did back in that classroom, and for trusting us with your home. To Jagger: thanks for showing up the way you always do, no matter whose door it turns out to be.
And to anyone who's lived here long enough to run into your past in the grocery store, the carpool line, or your own living room, you know the feeling. That's the part of this valley that makes it home.
D&A Heating & Cooling is a family-owned shop serving Nampa, Caldwell, Meridian, Boise, Emmett, and the rest of the Treasure Valley. Heating, cooling, water heaters, and every now and then, a reunion nobody saw coming. 208-455-5158.