SBIF Spotlight: West Pullman HVAC firm rehabs office and hires new workers
After receiving two grants from the Small Business Improvement Fund totaling more than $69,000, All Weather Specialist completed rehabilitation work at its office at 214 W. 119th St. earlier this year, allowing owner Kevin Jones to hire two new staff members well ahead of schedule.
“This program is one of the best things the city could offer to small business,” Jones said in an interview at the West Pullman storefront he bought in 2014, where he recently completed rehab work totaling $95,000. “We’re in a professional space now, with additional staff, and without that grant money it may have been another two or three years before we got there on our own.”
The modest six-person shop started in Jones’ basement in 2003, before moving to a small facility on West 76th Street. The firm is a certified minority-owned business and specializes in heating, air conditioning and refrigeration, with residential as well as commercial clients such as McDonald’s, Planet Fitness and the Elk Grove Park District.
Jones, 51, got into the business after helping out his cousin at an HVAC firm in the 1980s, and that experience made him realize he was good with his hands. Now that he has the appropriate office space, Jones said he is hoping to team up with a South Side youth organization to offer a mentorship program for teens and young adults to learn about his industry.
“Kids in this neighborhood need opportunities, and let’s be honest, not all of them are going to college,” said Jones. “So if I can help be part of the solution by teaching this tradecraft, I want to do that.”
Jones services clients throughout the Chicagoland area, the south suburbs as well as northwest Indiana.
In 2016, SBIF financed $7.38 million in grants for Chicago businesses and nonprofits. The program is available in about 90 of Chicago’s Tax Increment Financing districts. Contact Somercor for more information.
