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What does it take to keep Southwest Florida comfortable year-round? ❄️⚡
On Episode 33 of the Hustle & Heat Podcast, we sit down with the team behind Boyd Brothers Service Inc. to talk about more than just air conditioning. We dive into their journey, the evolution of the HVAC industry, building automation, customer service, company culture, and what it takes to build a trusted family business that’s been serving Southwest Florida for decades.
Whether you’re a homeowner, business owner, or entrepreneur, there’s plenty of insight packed into this conversation.
🎧 Watch Episode 33 now!
Automatic transcript from Buzzsprout. It may contain errors.
0:00 What’s up, guys, and welcome back to another episode of Hustle and Heat Podcast. My name is George, your host, and welcome back to episode 33. Today we’re joined by Ed Boyd, CFO of Boyd Brothers Service Inc., and one of the founding Boyd Brothers, along with Michael Josephs, building development manager for the company’s building automation division. Since 1984, Boyd Brothers has been serving Southwest Florida with trusted HVAC, electrical indoor air quality, and building automation solutions for residential and commercial customers. Today we’ll hear how Boyd Brothers got its start, what’s fueled more than 40 years of service, and how the company continues to innovate through building automation. Without further ado, I’d like to welcome the one and only Ed Boyd. Ed, welcome to the podcast. Good morning. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for coming. How are you doing today? I’m doing fine. Good. Tell us what you do and why you do it.
0:57 I am the CFO for Boyd Brothers, and I’m the money guy for the company. Have to pay attention to what comes in, pay attention to what goes out, and make sure we have the resources to support 77 families that are counting on us keeping our doors open.
1:19 Here at Dove’s, we have 28 families feeding off of one vision. So as a business owner, I know that’s like a big aspect that rides on your shoulders more than anything. How did Boyd Brothers begin?
1:32 Boyd Brothers began on September 9th, 1984. It was when my middle brother Bob, because Boyd Brothers has five brothers, Ed, Gene, Bob, Ron, and Walt. No sisters? No sisters. Five brothers. Your dad was a smart old man. Yes, my poor mother, yes. My brother Bobby took the state licensing, and he passed the boards, and that’s the official date of Boy Brothers starting. And my fourth brother, Ron, we’re all from Michigan, and my dad decided that the family needed to move to Florida. My dad was a lone child, and his parents, my grandparents, were very outdoorsy people, and they turned into ghosts during the winter. So my dad decided, yep, we’re moving to Florida. So my brother Bob and my brother Gene were both in the sheet metal union in Detroit, and they were working at the Detroit Rensen, which is a giant complex on the river that Henry Ford built, and they decided that the cold was getting to them too. But my youngest, no, my fourth brother Ron was the first one that came. Then my brother Walt, number five, came. What number are you? Number one. Number one? Number one. I’m the oldest.
3:12 Number one in the family and number one in our hearts, man. Oh, you were so kind, thank you.
3:17 And then um Gene came, Bob came, and I came last. And um that’s how it began. So five brothers, they got up every day and went and played business.
3:31 Yeah?
3:31 Yes.
3:32 You call it played business, huh? Yep, yes. It was a solid game, right?
3:35 Well, it’s it was uh it’s different when you’re running it versus working for somebody else. Yeah, I know. So the the the whole mechanics of your operation functions differently. And you you need uh a vision and a path and a means of getting from A to B to C to D. And don’t forget passion. Passion came a little later because you know, our company, like most companies to start, it’s just there’s a lot of mistakes, a lot of failures, things that you think you did right, that you find you did wrong, and it’s a it’s a learning experience, and and in the ideal situation, you want to be able to grow with it, and then if you make a mistake, you make sure that you don’t make that mistake again and learn from that mistake and move on. We discovered that there really wasn’t a lot of customer service when we first started, and we focused on customer service, and we made sure that the customer was happy before, during, and after the sale. And to this day we have what they call the full service. You know, the you start here and you go here and you go here and you go here, and the customer’s bit with you. I mean, we have we have a customer that’s probably bought eight systems in the 44 years we’ve been in business between his home and his kids’ home and grandkids and all that. So it’s it’s such an important aspect of what you do is keeping the customer, the existing customer happy, and keeping them happy. And we live in a we live in a state that there’d be nobody living here if Willis Carrier never invented air conditioning. I mean, this is a horrible place to be if you have no air conditioning. I agree. And when we and when we have the the hurricanes and we have power outages, it is terrible. Terrible. People are unhappy and miserable and they’re mean and nasty, and the air conditioning makes Florida livable, and we do our part to make Florida livable by providing service and expertise.
6:26 So it’s also meaning behind the company’s name.
6:30 My dad was behind that, and he felt that the name of the company should reflect the people who work there, and it should mean something. And instead of being acme air conditioning or first air conditioning or best air conditioning, he said we need to put our name on the business, and that’s what we did. And Boyd Brothers exist. Thy brothers.
7:00 Very nice. So obviously you’ve been open since 1984, that’s many years in business. Where did you start and how have how how many things have you done to grow this business in those those years?
7:14 Well, we have we have some origin here in Northport because one of our first big projects, my father built the Ukrainian village on Biscayne, and then he was involved with uh Ukrainian church adjacent to it, St. Andrews, and then St. Mary’s further up the street on Biscayne. So that uh Ukrainian Village was a uh 45-unit condo complex, and it was big bananas back then for us, back in the in the in the mid-80s. And it just we just got bigger slowly. We got bigger, we sold more, and we sold more, and my my brother Gene decided that we need to focus on something that everybody else isn’t focusing on. And what he thought we should focus on is the the high-end equipment, because the high-end equipment is the most energy efficient. And my brother Gene was always very conscious of energy costs, and he thought that that if we can if we can get people to buy this and save money and make it more environmentally friendly, it’s a win-win situation for everybody. And and really the selling the high-end equipment because of the efficiency is really how we got into the building automation portion of the, which is the majority of our business now. So the high-end market isn’t for everybody, but we were able to show our customers why they should do it and show them that the payback from this is going to pay for this unit. And plus, with your air conditioner, you don’t just buy the air conditioner and that’s it. You pay for it every month in your FPL bill because it shows up there. 60% of your bill is your air conditioner. So doing the showing the customer how they would be better off with this enhanced the customer, the environment, and us.
9:55 That’s awesome. So it goes full circle with that.
9:57 Yes, yes. And then it’s even more important today with all the environmental issues we have.
10:05 I agree. Um, how has the HVAC industry in Southwest Florida changed since you guys started?
10:11 I think it’s very fragmented. There’s, I don’t know, there could be 200, 300 air conditioning contractors between Charlotte and Northport. And it’s it’s a business that you can work out of your garage. And we, you know, I used to tell people when they would when they would question why this, why that, or the price, or why this efficiency, or why that. And it’s like, open the phone book, and half of these companies that are in the phone book are no longer in business. So it’s an easy way to get in, and it’s an easy way to get out. And what happens to your warranty when the air conditioner that you bought from the company is no longer in business? So it’s just, you know, price should be a criteria, but it should probably be one of ten items that you should look at.
11:20 I agree with you. Um, so getting into that and talking about price and what else you should look at. Talk to us about your company’s culture and values.
11:32 Well, it’s important to take care of your custom it’s important to take care of your employees first. If you take care of your employees, the employees are gonna take care of the company. And if you take care of your employees, your employees are gonna take care of your customers. And it it works hand in hand. There has to be, there has to be a bond between the employer and the employee. There has to be a bond between the the employee and the customer, and then the customer has the bond comes back to the customer. So it’s one of those full circle items also. It it’s it it’s important to be able to pay wages that your employees can live off of the wages. It’s important to provide benefits for the employees. We’re we’re we’re we seem to be in a downsizing in America of of what employers provide for their employees. We try to make sure that we take care of our employees. Happy employees are productive employees. You know, it’s the old it’s the old adage about when a customer is happy, they tell one person. When a customer is unhappy, they tell ten people. So if we could be on the the happy side of things here with happy and productive employees, the customer benefits totally. And then Boyd Rillers benefits.
13:23 I agree that’s actually a good way to look at things. So you guys work on both residential and commercial HVAC services? Yes. Okay. And um as far as your electrical services, how how’s the growth of that division going?
13:39 It’s it’s growing like like the like the building automation and the um air conditioning. We live we live in an area where a majority of the citizens here are seniors, and most of them can’t do what they need to do on repairs. So we provide the benefit and the service to them to do it. Because, in essence, people are paying us because they can’t do it themselves. So if they can’t do it themselves, we have to make sure that we do a good job for them. And we’d like a recommendation from them. We want them to be happy. Social media plays a big part, just like this podcast. People want to know who they’re dealing with, and they want to know is this a reputable firm or is this they take the money and they run? Because there’s scams everywhere. You know, we know it in the what’s happening on the internet, on the with the phones, it’s just there’s just people find all kinds of ways of taking other people’s money that they don’t deserve to do. So we have to be good at what we do, we have to take care of our employees, we have to take care of our customers.
15:08 I agree. And as far as that, with your reputation and and stuff like that, how involved in the community are you?
15:16 We try to be as involved as much as possible. We we support the kids in the schools. When they come for donations, they want they want to sponsor this, sponsor that. Boy Brothers is there to sponsor. Wherever there’s some place that we can do good, we do. People who can’t, we can’t do it for everybody, but there are customers who can’t afford a new air conditioner, we take care of it. You know, there has to be there has to be an involvement with the community. The community involves us, Boyd Brothers involves the community. We do our part to make this a nice place to live, a nice place to work, a nice place to go to school. We want to be a part of that equation.
16:17 I agree. So um what’s Boyd Brothers’ vision for the future?
16:24 A lot of the future is really gonna be what Michael’s gonna talk about. It’s the the building automation part of the business, which is just uh leapfrogging. It’s it’s just growing. It just growing. It’s it’s the future. It’s uh it’s uh being able to manage. Uh it building automation i if you can if you can measure it, we can control it. And outside of labor, energy is probably the most expensive cost to any business. And this is what we do. We manage the cost of energy for the customer and show them how they can save, what they need to do, and how to make the the work environment healthy too, because we need clean air.
17:24 That’s true.
17:25 We need cold air in the summer, we need warm air in the winter, and we need to be able to supply this and make it profitable for the person who buys this.
17:43 Very good. One last question for you, split into two segments. You’re you’re obviously an older man. You’ve been you’ve probably been through a lot, you’ve learned a lot of things in your life.
17:53 I’m 75 years old and proud.
17:56 75 still kicking. Yes, yes. Very good, still running a business. That’s awesome. So I want your number one advice for personal and your number one advice for business. Something that you’ve learned along your 75 years of living.
18:12 I think the the personal advice would be to try to keep a happy face and a good attitude. Things often don’t go the way we want. So we need to find ways to get back on that road if we get off of it. I I need to be happy and I need to smile and I need to just feel good about what’s happening. That I’m still on this side of the grass, which is a nice thing to be right now. From a professional point, I think I would say that um an employer standpoint, it’s important to take care of your employees. It’s important to take care of your customers. Because if you do your employees and your customers will take care of you. It’s a business that needs to function. It’s a business that needs to look to the future, because we we really don’t know exactly what’s happening with AI is making everybody crazy. Everybody crazy. So we just need to keep an open mind and think things out and not rush to judgment. We need to, especially with something as enormous as AI, we shouldn’t rush to judgment because I I’m hearing all kinds of things, and I’m getting whacked on this side of the head and getting whacked on that side of the head, and it’s and it’s and it’s not awe-inspiring at all. Because it’s like, oh my goodness, what are we supposed to do? You know, they’re telling us to do this, they’re telling us to do that. So I think we just need to keep an open mind and just keep it, try to keep a good head on your head and try to be happy and say, okay, we’ll get through this.
20:33 All right. Words of Ed Boyd. So, Ed, thanks for sharing the story of Boyd Brothers. Now let’s shift our focus to one of the company’s most innovative service offerings. Building automation. Michael, for those who may be hearing this term for the first time, what is a building management system?
20:52 What is a building management system? I’ve been in uh business for 40 years, and um so many times I’m asked that question by friends. This is my first time hearing about it. There you go. So I’m kind of excited about it. I’m gonna I’m gonna do my best to try to get you. There you go. Good understanding of what a building management system is. So, central nervous system for the entire building. Well, what does that mean, Mike? Central nervous system. It is the smarts, the brain, it’s at the core of the building. The building can be a small restaurant, it could be a gigantic tower in New York City. What is that central nervous system doing? It’s can it’s monitoring hundreds, thousands, or in some cases tens of thousands of points of information. What kind of information? Temperature, humidity, CO2, water pressures, air pressures. Other environmental systems. So it monitors all those pieces of information throughout the building. Alright, that’s really cool. We got all this information. It’s sitting up on a big screen in the basement of the building. What do you do with it? So here’s what we do with it. That critical information, now we make the environment for our customers comfortable and productive. How do we do that? We get all of that information, we read it, we program, put together programs that make the mechanical systems operate in the most efficient manner so that the creatures in the environment are comfortable all day long, all night long. So if you’re still having trouble understanding it, think of that smart thermostat that a lot of people today have in their homes. Imagine that scaled up, right? So I have you have one, I have one in my house, some people have two in their homes. Imagine scaling that up to a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, or a thousand thermostats. We provide automated logic building management systems. I’ve been in the business for a long time, and this isn’t a sales pitch for automated logic. My experience with the automated logic building management system is it is the finest of the finest out there. Hopefully that answers your question. You get a better understanding of what a building management system is.
23:42 I I think I get you’re just it’s more about monitoring what’s going on in the building, health for like health of your employees, health of people in here, and just comfortability as well as energy level um efficiency.
23:57 Am I correct there? Absolutely. You know, number one, number one, George, is make sure the people in the environments, or it doesn’t have to be people, it could be servers, it could be a data center, it could be animals, right? In some type of animal facility. We have to make sure they’re all comfortable. Number one, that’s priority one. Number two is we have to do that at the lowest cost possible, not for our systems, but energy uses usage as well.
24:33 So just an example, right? Right? So when we go to Hard Rock or any casino, they pump CO2 in the air, and as soon as you walk in, you forget about the outside world, right? You feel comfortable in there. Is that like something that is done by automated automated systems?
24:50 Absolutely. So as you know, your business owner, um, you brought up another example of a business. Could you imagine walking into that business and it was super cold in there or super hot? You’re probably gonna walk away. You’re going, most likely, you’re gonna walk away or start thinking about another venue, or maybe it’ll be your first and last time in that facility. A building management system monitors those temperatures, makes sure that everyone’s comfortable in the most efficient manner possible.
25:26 Michael, tell us a little bit about yourself and your role at Boyd Brothers.
25:30 So I’ll start in the beginning. So you know, coincidentally, I got into this business in 1984 when Ed and the Boyd Brothers opened up um Boyd Brothers service. We both got into the business at the same time. Um, I started on as a hands-on guy. So I was a building management, what we called up in New York, a building management system technician. So what I did is I would implement, I would install uh service, check out, test all these building management systems in gigantic big buildings in New York City. Um I I absolutely loved what I did. Um, it gave me such a great understanding of the business that we’re in. Because how do you how do you learn without, you know, reading a textbook is fine, going to some college courses is fine, but to really live it, breathe it, try to install it, work alongside with your customers that say, this is what you want, this is how we need it to work. I learned so much. Um, I did that for about the first 10 years of my my business of being in the business. I worked on some really cool, exciting projects. Um one that really sticks out to me was a Statue of Liberty. Um during the renovation of Statue of Liberty, we uh applied a building management system there that uh controlled temperature and humidity, um, counted the people going in, right? Because super critical, right? That building goes from zero occupancy to a hundred or a thousand people. So, as you can imagine, the HVAC systems have to be able to adjust to maintain the environment, make sure the first person walking in is comfortable and the last person walking out is comfortable as well. Um, we also on that project we actually lit the torch. It was so awesome to see the first time when we went to the building management system and we saw that torch go on. It was just fantastic.
27:42 That’s big.
27:43 Um I I worked at uh Rockefeller Center, two million square foot building. So you can imagine there is a ton of technology in there, just impressive to walk into this building. It’s two million square feet, thousands of people in the building, and you know, we are responsible to make sure those comp those those individuals are working in a very productive manner and they’re comfortable. Um both pre and post-9-11 trade centers. Um Trade Centers are very um uh uh heartwarming to me. When I was a young kid, I remember my parents bringing me up and seeing the first World Trade Center Tower 1 and 2 being completed. I I watched these towers go up into the sky that I couldn’t see the top of the buildings, and it was so super impressive to see that. Turns out, many years later, I’m a building management system technician and I’m working in those facilities. That was just awesome to me. I’m working in the tallest building in the world. So, so cool. Um then uh the office I was in, we watched both of those towers disintegrate, all those people die. Um very sad, very uh very difficult to deal with. Um, but I took a lot of pride in the fact that many years later, too many years later, um, automated logic, we were involved with uh rebuilding the new towers for towers for three of the towers down there. So uh a big transition. Um New York Stock Exchange data center. So as I said, it’s not always just for people. Sometimes we have to keep the we call it the toaster ovens, the the the servers. We have to keep them cool. If those servers aren’t cool, guess what? The stock exchange is an opening. That doesn’t happen, right? It doesn’t happen. It has to be a reliable system. Um we did some really cool work at uh Princeton University, a beautiful, beautiful campus. No, I didn’t go there, I only went there when I was in business, but uh we had a great relationship with them. So so many different um facilities that I started with. Um I over I had progressing roles uh after being in business for 40 years. I moved up from the being the technician in the field to a supervisor, then I got into sales, which I really enjoyed. My my it allowed me to apply my base base skills of understanding how a building management system works and what our customers want from those building management systems and actually be able to put together custom solutions for it. I really, really enjoyed that part of my career. Um I then moved up to sales sales management, and somehow in the end of my career up in New York, uh I was a general manager of a $60 million business with 160 people under me. Wow.
31:01 So you were there when the Twin Towers fell?
31:03 Yeah, unfortunately I was uh, you know, from our office. Um we could see uh on that Tuesday morning at 8 45, we saw what happened uh directly from our office. Uh yeah, not not uh not something.
31:22 How shocked were you?
31:23 Uh unbelievably shocked. It was a beautiful, crystal clear day. I still remember the day as if it was yesterday. Um and to see those buildings fall, um I to feel our our nation under attack. I didn’t feel comfortable until uh many, many, many hours later when I saw F-16s uh flying around New York City. Um you I also work for a company we were doing work in New York City, so we had an account for every one of our employees. They weren’t my employees at the time, but I believe the company I worked for had 140 employees, and we had an account for them in the city. So, how do you do that when all of the cells’ cell phones went dead? They all went dead. Everybody’s cell phone, I couldn’t get in contact with my team. I couldn’t get in contact with my brother. It was uh horrific. However, we stayed, um, a whole bunch of us stayed at the office until we found out everyone, thankfully, was accounted for. Unfortunately, not all of our customers were accounted for. So, yeah, touching times.
32:39 Sorry to hear that, man. Um, are there any types of faculties or industries that you serve?
32:45 So, so many. So, so many um different types of facilities. Um I’m still so impressed. Gene Boyd um started the building management side uh with automated logic product 40 years ago. Um, and what’s so impressive about it is so many different vertical markets or customer types. Um, small offices, uh a lot of that, a lot of those small offices, large healthcare facilities, right? That’s that’s a big swing. Um emergency operations centers that are in Lee and Manatee County, um, tons of educational facilities, schools, um, all different municipal buildings, uh, country clubs, yacht clubs. The diversity of Boyd Brothers portfolio is phenomenal. Um, I’m I’m so proud to be part of an organization that covers all of those different vertical markets and customer types. It’s fantastic to go into a building and not necessarily a gigantic building like a World Trade Center, but someone who just says, Hey Mike, I have this problem, can you help me solve it? Um it’s it’s really exciting to business to be in, and I’m I’m so proud to be part of Boyd Brothers.
34:15 That’s cool. Um, what are the benefits of the building management system for your commercial customers?
34:21 So, centralized control of multiple systems. Um in the past, not that long ago, um, there were so many what I call disconnected systems, HVAC systems, electrical systems, energy monitoring system, they’re all disconnected. And your staff had to run around the building, literally, run around the building to gather information from each of those separate disconnected systems. Um, we bring that all under one screen of glass, everything connected together centrally in one location. Um, it’s it’s a huge benefit to our customers. Uh consistency for comfort is absolutely the priority. Again, when the kids come into school first thing in the morning, it can’t be warm in there, it can’t be cold in there. When someone is going into an OR in a hospital, it can’t be warm in there, it can’t be cold in there, and the pressures in that OR need to be exact. It could literally be life or death. Um in a country club, let’s just say you’re having your wedding at a country club and you’re paying a lot of money for that, and you go into that country club and it’s not comfortable because they just have a thermostat on the wall and not a building management system that gives them an early indication that there could be a problem later on today. You don’t want to lose that revenue from your customers. So another big thing we bring to the table is remote monitoring. So, what does that mean? All this cool stuff that I’ve talked to you about happens in the building. You go to the basement of the building or the top floor of the building and you look at a big screen and you see all this information, you make changes, adjustments, you’re getting alarms, you’re getting early notification of problems that are going to become a bigger problem. But you know, now we don’t just do that in the building. We could do that from our home. We could do that if we’re on a European vacation on a laptop. No special software for the automated logic system, internet connection, a tablet, my cell phone, um, of course, uh a laptop computer that brings a significant amount of benefit to our customers. Um, you know, I hate to talk about the H-word, right? But we have the H-word. We have a lot of them, unfortunately, down here. Imagine you’re responsible for all of your customers being satisfied, but you can’t get to your building. You’re flying blind. Well, in the past you were flying blind. Now, with remote monitoring through an automated logic system from my home or someone else’s home, or if I’m on vacation somewhere remotely, I can monitor and control uh all of those systems.
37:38 That’s pretty cool. What if there’s like no power or internet because of the H-word? I’m sorry, what if there’s no power or internet because of the H-word?
37:46 That’s a great, great question, right? So um, depending on the criticality of the facility, a lot of a lot of facilities, well, some facilities have um uninterrupted power supplies, emergency generators, right? As you can imagine, a hospital is not going to be able to go dark ever, regardless of a hurricane. So they have generators, um, we have ways of connecting into the system remotely, um, and of course locally. So, yeah, that it’s it’s a big concern when those uh when the hurricanes come into town, but we we certainly have been a big help to our customers. Uh you know, look in the past five years, we’ve been a big help, and in many cases, we’ve had employees sleeping at a high-end customer’s location because they said we don’t know what to do. And we had someone say, you know what, we’re gonna come as long as I could bring my family, I’m gonna bring my family, and and we set that up for them.
38:53 So that’s that’s great customer service right there. Um, how do you impact energy efficiency and operating operational savings?
39:00 Yeah, so uh as I said, it’s the the second most important thing, right? Number one is uh make sure the creatures are comfortable in the building, they have to have the right temperature, humidity, pressures, uh CO2, and so on. Um, number two is how do we do that in the most efficient manner? It’s super critical. I I believe, as Ed talked about, you know, annually for most businesses, the number one cost is their employees. The number two cost is energy. So a building management system absolutely keeps energy savings as a top priority. You know, it used to be when I started in a business, make sure everyone’s comfortable. Now it’s make sure everyone’s comfortable in the most efficient manner. Um we do that by using programs that uh look at weather forecasting and we say there’s gonna be a cold spell, there’s gonna be a heat spell, and we adjust the mechanical systems prior to those critical events coming. Um we integrate, as I said, multiple systems into one platform. Um we produce energy for our customers at night when the energy is the cheapest. So we avoid those peak demands. So during the day, it depends on the time of year and the the energy provider. Umergy can be at its premium cost during the day, but at a reduced cost at night. So, how do you how do you capture that? What what do you do? How do you help your customers capture that savings at night? Well, some of the systems we do, we make what we call ice. So we run these expensive chillers at night, energy hogs, we run them at night, we store the we store the chilled water in big tanks, and that’s to be used later on in the day. Um, all this is uh you know some of the benefits of having a building management system. And what what does the future hold for smart buildings? Oh yeah, so there’s so much coming up. Um, it’s it’s a fantastic industry to be in, as you could tell. It’s a technology business. And as you know, technology’s not slowing down, not for a second. It’s going through the roof, you know. Uh it’s just amazing what’s happened. I’d say the biggest, biggest one is AI. AI on the building management system industry in general is going to is and is going to have future uh positive impacts uh to how we predict what’s coming up next in the buildings, what what’s gonna happen next, and how we’re gonna capture energy savings more by using AI. Again, there’s more uh I’ll say less disconnected systems today. There are so many systems that are coming out smart with onboard technology, and it’s so much easier today for us to integrate to those systems. When I say integrate, we literally land a pair of wires on many, many previously disconnected systems, and we get hundreds or thousands of points of information, which again allows the building owner to capture savings and make sure the environment is operating at the most inefficient uh sorry, efficient manner.
42:55 Very nice. So you talk about AI a lot. Have you heard any rumors of a data center coming to Northport? And how do data centers affect all these resources that we do?
43:05 Yeah, no, so I I haven’t heard of that one, a specific one in Northport. Um, I know there’s two sides of this story. There’s some supporters and some people that distract our distra that don’t think it should happen. So on data centers, I’m not familiar with the uh potential project in Northport. Um I am a supporter of data centers. Yes, the I believe the most critical impact is energy. Um, where are we going to get the energy from? How’s it is is that gonna make the lights in my restaurant go dim? Um I I don’t believe that’s going to happen. These data center companies are not only planning on building data centers, but they’re planning on implementing power sources on their own. In some cases, tiny nuclear power generating plants. Um, so I’m not familiar with them, but you know, they, in my opinion, I don’t necessarily want one right in my backyard, but they’re not the worst thing to be in your backyard. Um, a gigantic building with hundreds of people going in and out every day could be pretty interruptive if that was in your backyard. A data center sits there quietly and does what it’s gonna do. Um, you know, it’s gonna be creating that AI. Uh I’m not necessarily against them. I I think also I know they provide a lot of jobs. There are a lot of jobs for people that are building these data centers and maintain them on day two.
44:46 All right. How does the BMS side of the house complement the HVACs business?
44:51 Yes, that’s that’s a great question. So um we’re both start on the same foundation. The foundation is HVAC, and we both focus on on the HVAC side, they go into people’s homes and make sure they’re comfortable in the most energy efficient manner. They’re doing that on a small scale, home by home by home. On the commercial side for the H sorry, for the BMS side of the house. We do it on a larger scale. We do exactly the same thing. We make sure the HVAC systems are keeping everyone comfortable and productive, and we make sure we do it in the most energy efficient manner. So we both they both uh they both function. Uh both sides of the house complement each other.
45:47 All right. Is there anything else you would like to say?
45:51 I I would just like to say, so focusing on 40 years. 40 years is an amazing track record, it’s a proven track record. We love our customers, our customers love us. You’d be hard pressed to find an HBAC or building management system provider in Southwest Florida that’s been in business for 40 years and growing and growing and growing.
46:20 That’s that’s a testament to your success, man. And I uh wish you guys continued success over the coming years. And I appreciate both both appreciate both of you, Ed and Michael. Thank you for coming on the podcast and appreciate you guys who are watching. And if you guys are watching, please go check these guys out at Boyd Brothers. I’m sure they’ll take good care of you. Uh, we appreciate you, and we’ll see you on the next episode. Thank you.
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