Page 16 - The Compass 2017 | Volume 12 | Issue 8

ou have to be able to talk about your dreams. To hear back and forth between jobs. These two somehow, someway,
ythem. You have to be able to feel them. If you don’t speak ran service calls simultaneously while sharing the vehicle.
about them, they don’t come true. When you share them, “Oh yeah, they were riding together for years,” Delana said
they can become a reality.” while breaking into a subtle laugh. “Dispatching them wasn’t
Those are the impassioned words of Daniel Castillo, own- easy! It was pretty funny.”
er of A#1 Services Heating & Air Conditioning in Palm “Hey, hey! We know how to make a dollar out of a dime!”
Desert, California. “Here, we talk about our vision with our Daniel said as he burst into laughter.
people, what we want for our company—and them,” he con- It was dollars that Daniel and Gonz needed. As Gonz in-
tinued. “We want to make money, sure. But we really want to sinuated earlier, the partners had spent the previous eight
see other people grow, that’s our real vision.” years working for another contractor. Daniel did HVAC
“We want to see the families of the people that work for us work, and Gonz plumbing. By 2007, the recession had seem-
prosper,” Gonzalo Zapata added. Gonz, as he’s affectionately ingly strangled all business from the Coachella Valley. Daniel
known, is another member of the ownership quartet at A#1, and Gonz spent more time in their own homes than with
along with Daniel’s wife, Delana Castillo, and Daniel’s aunt, customers, averaging only 10 to 15 hours a week. The two
Cara Goldberg. had always talked about doing something on their own. The
“Daniel and I came from a company when we would get economy and their employer forced them to make the jump.
slow, they kept you home and gave the guys making less Service calls managed to find them, thanks to connections
hourly the work,” Gonz continued. “That’s no way to make a and hustle. “Word of mouth started getting bigger and big-
living. We wanted to treat people better.” ger,” Delana explained. “I was a stay-at-home mom, but I had
“We treat people like we treat each other, like family,” to start answering the phones. We had a little office in our
Delana quickly interjected. house. I’d be texting the guys their next calls and customers’
This culture of family oozes from their words; it’s not information. We got so busy, so fast.”
cheap lip service spoken on for the benefit of an interview. “We’ve always been 24 hours, too. [Delana] was good at
These four believe it. It drives them. It’s that culture which keeping me out all night!” Daniel said with a chuckle. “We
has propelled A#1 Services’ sales from $80,000 in 2013 to a did what we had to get things rolling. Hard work has never
projected $4 Million by the end of 2017, a 500 percent in- scared us.”
crease in only four years. Delana spearheaded the effort to formalize the company,
“I come in very early in the morning before all the guys which meant a name. “We brainstormed a lot of good names.
get here. I pray for them. As we’ve grown, our responsibili- When we went to get our license, all our names had been tak-
ties have increased. We have a lot of employees and this com- en,” she shared. “In our small valley, there’s over 500 licensed
pany affects a lot of lives,” Cara thoughtfully reflected. “We contractors for A/C alone. That’s not including plumbers.
want to be able to continue to serve them to the best of our A#1 was sort of our last resort. Now we’re in the process of
abilities.” a gradual rebrand to A#1 Service Heroes. Eventually, we’ll
Given the company’s meteoric rise, it’s almost shocking to drop the A#1.”
think about A#1 Services’ beginnings—just two friends and Name in place, Delana went about spreading A#1 Services’
a truck. brand throughout the Valley as best she could. “I created our
first website and did all the advertising myself in those early
tWo friends & a truCk days. I spent hours upon hours creating an online presence
Zipping along I-10 or Highway 111 in a little, black 2000 for us. It took that kind of time because we didn’t have the
Ford Ranger, Daniel and Gonz could often be found hustling money to do it,” Delana explained.
“After a number of
years, we realized we had
The A#1 field team enjoying one of their daily training meetings. no idea how to structure
a business. We didn’t
have finance or tax back-
grounds. That’s why we
reached out to Daniel’s
Aunt Cara. We said to
her, ‘What do we need to
do?’ She ended up being
the perfect fit.”

aunt Cara
arrives
Aunt Cara anticipated
her part-time role with
the company would may-
be last a summer. She
was in between jobs and

16 THE COMPASS | Issue 8 | 2017