Atlanta’s Moncrief Heating and Air Conditioning can now make a claim few home service businesses can – 120 years of continuous service. Launched as the city met the 20th Century, growth and innovation have marked its history, but one thing has never changed: keeping customers comfortable and providing superior service with integrity and respect.
“In 1898, Atlanta was booming as the center of the ‘New South’ and reconstruction,” says current President and CEO Frank Mutz. “The city was approaching a population of 90,000 and was ripe for an entrepreneur like Stephen Moncrief. Furnaces and ducts were something new to Southern homes then,” he adds, “and Moncrief was the first furnace manufacturing and service company of its kind in the South.”
While innovation is a hallmark of the ever-changing HVAC needs of Atlanta homes and businesses, Mutz is particularly proud of the legacy built through family ownership and the company’s longstanding philosophy of service and integrity. “We’ve operated with just three families at the helm – the Moncrief’s, the Kent’s and mine,” says Mutz. “And our business is still based on doing the job right the first time, telling the truth and keeping accounting and paperwork simple.”
Mutz, who entered his family’s HVAC business as a teen in Illinois, moved to Atlanta in 1973 at the age of 24 to manage Moncrief. “I’ve been here 45 years and what we’ve built is still family-focused,” he says. “We’re now working for the second and third generations of many customers and those families and business owners have come to depend on Moncrief to keep them comfortable. And” he adds, “we treat each one of our employees as family too. That’s important to me.”
Today, the fifth generation in the family business continues with Mutz’ three children and his son-in-law. In addition, there are now seven groups of related employees who are building their own legacies within the company. “Our employees are loyal and hard-working,” he says. “In fact, nearly 50 percent of our employees have been here for more than 10 years. So we’ll kick off our 120th year of service with a special celebration just for them.”