27-year-old area business, Leach • Remmers, bought by Richie Whalen
By Marcel Pacatte
Jeff Leach has sold his business, Leach • Remmers Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc., of Jacksonville, to Richie Whalen. The deal closed April 1.
It’s not hard to figure out the Jeff Leach part: He and Gary Remmers started their business 27 years ago;
Remmers retired several years ago and Leach has accomplished what he set out to do with the business.
The Richie Whalen part is more of an enigma. He already is a part of a business, Whalen Trucking, Inc., and manages day-to-day operations as president of that business, which his father and uncle started more than 50 years ago.
When asked why he would want to buy a comparatively smaller operation such as Leach • Remmers, something that doesn’t have any synergies with the trucking business, he flips it: “I couldn’t find a reason why not.”
He said he wants people to understand who he is and why buying Leach • Remmers is the right move for him.
Whalen has been involved with the trucking business since graduating from Illinois State University in 2008, and he doesn’t plan to end his relationship there, just shift to a less intensive role as he takes on the new challenge of Leach • Remmers.
He plans to be an active owner, as Leach has been, bidding jobs and installing HVAC in residences and businesses along with the existing crew.
And that part is going to take some time to learn, which also is why Leach isn’t going anywhere, having agreed to stay on to help train Whalen in the intricacies of heating and air conditioning as he transitions into the new business.
But there is no mistaking that Whalen is the owner and Leach now the employee, which probably has as much to do with both men’s personalities as it does with their respect for each other. When someone had a question and came to Leach, he pointed at Whalen. It was Whalen’s question to answer now. But if it’s a question Whalen has for Leach, Leach is happy to offer his guidance.
Whalen’s business experience, he said, is one of the reasons he decided to purchase the company. It is not solely his experience with specifically running a family business, though. Whalen has a background in business; he majored in small business administration and entrepreneurship. He adds, too, that while he enjoys the work he has been doing at Whalen Trucking, he is excited that buying Leach • Remmers will get him back to the roots of his degree.
“I’m always telling my kids they can do anything,” Whalen said, and this, he added, is his chance to prove that — not just to the six of them but to himself.
He said he always has had a healthy respect for people in the service industry and trades, and buying the business gives him a chance to gain more experience there.
But, still, why is he doing this?
He mentions Emily, his wife. She has encouraged him and supported him, he said, because she knows he is always pushing himself, looking for ways to grow as a person. “This couldn’t happen without the support of Emily and my family,” he said.
He also mentions some bankers, who have been key in making the transaction move smoothly.
“I was just looking for another opportunity,” he said, and this came along. He and his wife talked, and then he and Leach talked, and the opportunity worked and the deal was done.
He’s not looking to clean house or make wholesale changes, if any changes at all — one of the attractions is that what Leach has built is working, and working well. Whalen has a strong sense of the people involved in the business. He and Leach both agree on that point: Without the crew, there’s no business. The employees are the ambassadors dealing with the customers, whether it’s Peggy Schoondyke answering the phone or any of the guys going into homes and interacting with the customers on their turf. And if the customers aren’t happy with the work the employees produce, Leach wouldn’t have had anything to sell.
In fact, Whalen is so conscious of what the employees bring to the mix that when he was asked about having a photo taken for this story, his immediate response was to ask to do it early on a morning when everyone was present at the shop before starting their workday. He wanted them all to be included.
“It’s a family,” Whalen said.
Leach, laughing, added, “A family of misfits.”
In addition to covering Jacksonville, Leach • Remmers Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. ventures out 30 miles in any direction, going to Winchester, Beardstown, Virginia, White Hall, Waverly and Franklin, to name a few. Leach said that when the new housing market was really booming they did a lot of installing of systems for new construction in subdivisions being developed around town. They still do that but most of the work is redoing systems in existing homes.
Leach calls that building a puzzle from the ground up, implanting a system that will work in an existing structure, and that experience that he and Remmers developed over time, almost silently communicating to the other as they walked through a place together to bid a job, is what Whalen said he most hopes to tap into.
That noise you hear coming from the shop at 108A Ankrom Drive in Jacksonville is exactly that, Whalen tapping.
