In December of 2005, Chris Cocozzo and Jason Kelsey bought the Caroline Street mainstay from longtime owners Bill Sutton and Mike Murray. Having both worked at Boyce and Drake before the purchase, Cocozzo (President) and Kelsey (Vice President) understand the customer service tradition and have maintained it as a priority. Earlier this week, I sat down with the two to talk about the business.

Saratoga TODAY: Tell me a little bit about yourself.

Jason Kelsey: I graduated from Galway High School. As soon as I graduated, I spent four year in the Marine Corps. When I got out, I started working for Bill and Mike here. They sat me down for the interview and asked me the infamous, “Where do you want to be in five years” question. I told them that I was going to own their business in five years.

Chris Cocozzo: I went to school up in Delhi for refrigeration/air conditioning/plumbing/heating. I graduated and then worked for a commercial refrigeration company for three years and then came down to Boyce and Drake.

ST: Has the business always been located here (24 Caroline Street)?

JK: Absolutely. It’s always been on the corner. People come down to pay their bills. They know they can stop in if they have any problems with their bills. They know where we’re at, even if they’re not real familiar with Chris and me yet. We want people to know we’re from the area and we’re not going any where. We get letters all the time to sell the company. We don’t want to do that.

ST: How important is your relationship to the success of the business?

CC: What we do is split the business. Basically, its one business, but we split it in two. Jason does all the contract work and all the estimates. I do all the emergency service work. We don’t step on each other’s toes. He has his department and I have mine to run.

ST: How has business been recently?

CC: This past winter and last winter, we were slower than winters prior to that because they were cold winters. These last two were mild. I’ve talked to people who said they were golfing into January. When you’re golfing into January, that’s not too good for the heating system business. We’re getting by with a staff of 12-13, while some others with much less are having a tougher time.

ST: What are some changes you’ve made in the business in recent years?

CC: Twenty-four hours, seven days a week. The business has been here for 61 years. For that to happen, they have to be doing something right. We decided to make some subtle changes, not big changes. When we took over, the business was growing. We were getting a lot of phone calls and we couldn’t handle it, so we hired on more people. We didn’t want to grow too fast, but we also didn’t want to let new customers get away from us. I think that was a big change and the 24-hour, pager service. Right now, we’ve got three people on call at all times. We’ve got a heating technician, air conditioning technician and plumber all on call at all times.

ST: Are you getting calls at all times?

CC: Oh yeah. On Monday through Thursday, we don’t get as much – maybe two calls – but Friday, Saturday and Sunday, you tend to get more. A service technician might field 8-10 calls on a weekend. It’s all weather dependent. Plumbing is mainstay. It’s not going any where. Heating and air conditioning are weather dependent.

JK: Eighty percent of our total business is within a five-mile radius of Saratoga Springs. If you can’t take care of the people in your own community, how are you going to go anywhere else and take care of them? We’re very into the local community. We sponsor all the kids’ sports and teams. We eat at local restaurants.

CC: We try to support the people who support us. Hopefully, that catches on and stays that way. That’s the way Saratoga used to be.

ST: How does the business break down in terms of services?

CC: I would have to guess that plumbing is about 60 percent of the business. We could run plumbing only, but what puts you over the top are the other services. What makes us successful is that people know they can call here for any of our services, from a one-hour job to huge project – we don’t turn anybody away. No job is too small.

JK: We can stop by to fix a drippy faucet and then we’ll take a look at the furnace if you’re having a problem with that. People like that. They don’t want to call two different companies.