On July 1, 2010 the Greater Boerne Chamber of Commerce celebrated our longest tenured member, Kendall County Air, with former owners, Gaylan and Cherry Schroeder and current owners, Steve and Jimi Driskill, their dedicated staff and a large contingent of Chamber Ambassadors.
Kendall County Air has been a member of the Chamber for 37 consecutive years.
“Gaylan is not only my father-in-law; he is also my mentor,” Steve told us. “When I first joined the business, I learned how important it was to be a Chamber member. Whether times were lean or business was flourishing, Gaylan impressed upon us that we needed to be a member of the Chamber because he knew the Chamber and its members do business with each other.”
“We’re all so blessed to live in a community that supports local businesses. Successful business owners know that community involvement is such an important priority. When schools, churches and other non-profit organizations within the community need help, they look to Chamber members to get involved, paying their success forward.”
Steve shared, “until I got involved in the Chamber I wasn’t clear about what the Chamber does. But what an eye opener it was to serve on the Board of Directors. People would be amazed by how much business is done while participating in networking events.” Now he recognizes the volume of work done by the Chamber, either by the Ambassador Council that helps businesses grow and flourish, or through the advocacy of the Government Affairs Council, or educational opportunities available from the Small Business Council.
One way Steve got involved is by sponsoring the Chamber’s Member-to-Member Discount Program. This program encourages members to offer special discounts to each other, discounts not available to the community as a whole. You can read more about it on the Chamber website, boerne.org.
Routinely voted the Best of the Best by readers of the Boerne Star, Kendall County Air is thriving in a difficult economy. “Over the last six years, everything has changed,” says Steve. “The economy is down; new construction has all but dried up. Our focus has changed to residential and light industrial retrofit. Customer service is our number one priority. Now the best air conditioning guys must become the best customer service guys.” Steve stresses that while Customer Service is king, the way he can earn your business is through the retention of his top notch staff and by sharing with them his philosophy of delivering the highest quality service. Most of his new business comes from new customers who are dissatisfied with their old service provider. You can bet that Kendall County Air will continue to be the county’s largest air conditioning service provider because of the vision and adaptability of its leadership and dedicated staff.
It was a wonderful celebration last Thursday at Kendall County Air’s 37th chamber anniversary. Over a great lunch provided by Jimi and Steve, and one of Bumdoodlers’ decadent carrot cakes we learned a lot about Kendall County Air and how it has grown for the last 37 years. During the next several weeks we’re going to be celebrating the memberships of other businesses like Kendall County Air that make a difference in our community. If you’d like to learn more about our members and how they are building Boerne and Kendall County into a model of prosperity for 21st Century America with us, contact Terri Politi our Vice President of Membership Development and find out how you can become an involved chamber member, like Steve and Jimi Driskill.