From British Army to 150 Employees: The Leadership Rules That Built Air2O

From British Army to 150 Employees: The Leadership Rules That Built Air2O

What does it take to build a high-performance manufacturing company?

In this episode of The Hiring Confessional, Michael Hayes sits down with Tom Sullivan, Co-Founder and COO of Air2O, to discuss leadership, hiring, manufacturing growth, company culture, and the lessons he brought from the British Army into business.

Tom shares how Air2O grew from a small engineering startup into a global manufacturing company with 150+ employees, plans for a 6x facility expansion, and hundreds of new jobs on the horizon.

Topics include:

✅ Hiring for attitude over experience
✅ Why soft skills matter more than resumes
✅ Military leadership principles in business
✅ Building accountability and ownership at every level
✅ Scaling a manufacturing company through rapid growth
✅ Data centers, innovation, and mission-critical cooling technology
✅ Creating a culture where people take pride in their work
✅ The future of manufacturing and workforce development

Whether you're a business owner, hiring manager, entrepreneur, recruiter, or someone looking to grow your career, this conversation is packed with practical leadership insights.

Guest: Tom Sullivan, COO & Co-Founder, Air2O
Host: Michael Hayes, The Hiring Confessional

#Leadership #Hiring #Manufacturing #BusinessGrowth #Entrepreneurship #CompanyCulture #Recruiting #LeadershipDevelopment #Air2O #HiringConfessional #DataCenters #ManufacturingJobs

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hello, this is Michael Hayes with the Hiring Confessional. Today we're going to be talking with an exciting guest, actually a client of mine, so he can tell you if I do a halfway decent job or not. But as I usually like to start off with some tips, I got kind of a mixed bag today for employers and people that are looking for a job. One of the things I find every day, because I look at job boards and we have people applying for industrial positions, is update your resume, please. Don't tell me you can't update it on Indeed or you can't update it through your email system or whatever. Everybody knows you can. And I hear that nonstop. All you're doing is telling people you don't know how to use computers, and that is not a good idea, especially in today's world. So put your stuff on your resume that's actually relevant. What about an email address? That would be great too. And a correct phone number. Do you know how many times I call people and it's a wrong phone number? At least two or three times a week. That is ridiculous. Now, my therapist told me don't get too mad about these things. So I got this thing she gave me called a rage chip. And when I get stuff like that all the time when I'm looking for people, that ruins my rage chip. So just remember that. The other thing I like to talk about is don't, as an employer, think you can use this AI stuff to do all your hiring. Again, lots of employers that are in the 200, up to 250 to 500 employees are starting to think they can use AI to do all their hiring. AI does not talk to people. You will miss out on more quality hires because you're not meeting with them individually. And you're not meeting with the people that you want to hire. And guess what? Your competition is. So if you're gonna use AI to hire, you're gonna be lonely at your own business. Update your contact infos all the time on your resume. Get an email address. I've already talked about this again, but I cannot tell you how many times I email somebody and they don't have the correct email and it bounces back. You're missing out on a job offer. That's not very intelligent. And after 10,000 interviews that I've done before I stopped counting, no one's gonna tell you your hiring sucks. I will tell you your hiring sucks. The thing that Momentum Hiring Solutions does is we fix your hiring. So if you have any questions about that, please reach out to me. Today I have one of my best customers, Air20, who is a manufacturer here in North Phoenix. The founder, co-founder, Tom Sullivan, is the COO. I have him on today, and we're gonna talk about hiring and his business. Tom, welcome to the show. Thanks, Mike. Appreciate you uh having me here. Oh, anytime. Give us um give us a little background on um, because you're from the UK, obviously. Give us how'd you get here and how'd you get involved with Air 20?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So uh as a co-founder, um, I was uh 12, 14 years ago, I was in the British Army. Um so that's my background. I'm an electrical engineer by by trade. Um and uh post-Afghanistan, you know, 2012, 2013 era, uh, there was an opportunity to found Air 20 as one of the founding partners. Um and really we started as an engineering company, a company that would design systems that didn't already exist. You know, you've got catalog systems that are already there, uh, but there's a gap. Um and we we saw that gap, we knew that there was a solution, um, uh, and we would engineer those solutions. So we were an engineering company to start with. Fast forward, um, we do a good job at that, right? Um, and we get the attention of some VC firms here in Arizona, actually Scottsdale. Um, I'd never heard of Scottsdale prior to that. So uh in 2017, we flew out uh to Scottsdale in April, which is you know the best time. I wasn't not aware of what I was letting myself in for in the summer, uh, but we signed some VC deals and actually came over to Scottsdale in 2017, uh joined the local um trade organizations and commerce authorities and went on to ACA's Venture Ready program uh that helped us um grow. Uh we were five people at the time. Um and then in 2021, we we got a private equity uh investment in 2021, and that was really the catalyst that changed. We became then a fully uh bespoke engineering and manufacturing company. So from 2021 to now, you know, we've had several hundred percent uh growth. We're sitting at somewhere around 150 uh employees today uh globally. We have employees in 20 different countries, uh, but we have um the majority of them are uh headquartered here out of Phoenix. We're just in the process of going through a six times expansion uh in the in the North Valley, in Dare Valley, and we're looking to have around another 200 jobs onboarded by the end of 2027.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

You know, it's interesting because I started working with you like four years ago, with Tony obviously referred me as well. Yeah, and that's what I think of the first time I met you. And um I was fascinated because I'm a big fan of air conditioning. Yeah, because I've lived, you know, I was born here. So air conditioning has always been like my number one issue. So tell them a little bit about the the units you make and where they best fit into the economy and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Certainly in in Arizona, I mean, air conditioning is front of all of our minds, right? Um we don't do what's called comfort cooling. So we're sitting in here now with the air conditioning on, that's a comfort cooling approach. We do thermal management for mission critical, and that's just a fancy way of saying anywhere where the environment, the temperature, the humidity, the control of that environment is critical to the output. For example, data centers, um lithium-ion manufacturing, microchip, pharmaceutical, healthcare, you know, if we if you get a change in the environment, in that thermal environment, something downstream is going to be affected. So they're really the markets that we focus on. To put it into perspective, your household AC unit, somewhere in the region of seven to ten thousand dollars for a household um in Arizona AC unit. One of our units, you know, could be upwards of $750,000 for one unit. So a different scale.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

So your when you develop that product, it also has a uh energy saving component. So it because it can do the it can do like vap cooling plus it can do regular AC cooling. Explain that because I thought I was pretty interested when I looked that stuff up when I first started working with you, because that's that's pretty unusual.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Sure. I mean, there's five things you can do to air, right? You can heat it, cool it, add moisture, take moisture away, and clean it. And that's it. They're the five things you can do to air. So we're always doing one or more of those five things in any application that we do. So there's two things you look for in efficiency. One is new technology, okay, pushing the max tech, the technological boundaries to incorporate cutting edge technology, which is more efficient. That could be new motor technology, uh, but it could also just be new cutting edge technology that's right on the fringes. So we're always looking to bring that in. We're always innovative. Um, we're innovators first, engineers first. Um, and that's great if you can find a tech that is is efficient in itself, being new tech. There's another pot form of energy efficiency which we call efficient by design. What that means is most systems in the world are cookie-cutter systems, they're mass-produced systems for the 80 percentile of applications. But there's the mission-critical applications where a cookie-cutter solution doesn't work, it's either a little bit too small or a little bit too big. What we do is we make it efficient by design. We design it exactly for that application or for that user or for that purpose. It isn't oversized, it isn't undersized, every watt, every power, every um part of that unit is designed for its output, for its purpose, so there's no wasted energy. So that's efficiency by design.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

So again, when we're talking about data centers, and everybody, now you're getting the oh, the data center bad and all that stuff. So you've got something that's actually using as more a conservative way to cool your place.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Absolutely. Um, first of all, data centers are not bad. I just want to say that they're very good. Um, you know, there's a lot of myths around data centers.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Turn it off and find out how everybody likes it.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Exactly. The irony of people complaining about data centers on Twitter, um, which are X now, um, which you know is using data centers and edge compute in order to get that message out there. I the irony is you know hard to ignore. Uh, but no, data centers are a good thing. Um, they are actually very energy efficient for what they are. You've gone are the days where you know we're we're using you know inefficient technologies. There are efficiency standards that need to be there. Um, and we work with the hyperscalers with the likes of you know Facebook and and Google and Oracle to design the next generation of equipment, whether that be air-cooled stuff, which is where we've been for the last 30 years, and now transitioning into liquid-cooled data centers, which is an exciting, uh exciting horizon for us to be crossing.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Now, one of the things I noticed when I came to your place the first time Tony gave me a tour, he I was shocked at how clean the place was. Like, I'm a big clean freak, so like as soon as it went in the door, like, oh my God, this place is spotless. And like when you tell people that, like when I'm recruiting the people, and I'm saying, hey, listen, this isn't like the you know, an ocean minefield. This is like a clean place that's climate controlled. And I don't think people believe me, but tell them, I mean, that's exactly how your place is.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

Absolutely. So I was 10 years in the military prior to this, um, and there are standards, and I brought those standards, you know, that is part of my experience, that is part of the fabric of who I am. Um, and that has brought that into business and into entrepreneurship. Uh, and for me, there's a standard, and it's a binary standard. There's no gray area. It either is or it isn't. It's a one or a zero. Um, and we we have that across the board. So, you know, we start work at 6 a.m., 600. And if you come in at 600 and 10 seconds, you are late. Um, and there is a consequence for that. You don't get shouted at, you know, you know, you're not a bad person, you're just late. It just is. You're binary, a one or a zero. And it's the same for our what we call engineering and manufacturing hygiene standards. So we're a lean organization, first of all, um, so that it means that there's a place for everything, everything has a home. Um, but also our shop floor and engineering hygiene is is a standard, and we have to meet that standard every day, and there are consequences if we don't meet that standard. And that really translates into everything that we do. For example, um, and this is a little unpopular in the in the newer, newer generations, but we have a uniform at Air Tool. All of our technicians have a uniform, and there is a uniform standard. You must have your shirt tucked in. What difference does it make if I took my shirt in? It isn't the point about having a difference, but that's the standard. Um, and and you either have your shirt sucked in or you don't, and it's a one or a zero, and it's in it, and it that's the standard. Um, and what we believe actually is that if you take pride in your appearance, right? Um, and you're professional in your appearance, if you take pride in the appearance of your work area, your immediate kind of five-foot work area, and then your larger work area spanning out to 20 feet. If everybody does that, all you know, 150 employees do that all day, every day, that that you know, um Constantine is into a much bigger effect. But it actually translates into the product. You know, if if in your subconscious you you care about your shirt being tucked in, you're also going to care about that that screw being fastened the right way, all right? About the the the sensor being installed at the right angle. Like the little details matter. And if we look after all of the little details, that translates into a good product at the end.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Okay, so you mentioned two things that the trolls of the show just hate. One of them was being on time, they'll have people that make comments about being on time and baby boomers are crazy, and why'd you give a ball guy a show and all this other stuff? They say things like that, and they don't get this time thing. And I'm I and I've always had a hard time explaining that to people. But the other one was the dress. Okay, so now you got now we're adding the dress, and that I've never heard that one before, which I think, hey, it's it's kind of something that gets people in the mood to be at work, and it's more of a professional thing, but people will just fight that. I mean, that I know or or that watch or the trolls. The trolls love talking about anything that builds character or things like that.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Have you had a pushback on that, or how's that gone? So we do a 90-day probationary period where you don't get issued a uniform, right? So the uniform is the reward, and we call them blue shirts. So when you pass your 90-day probation, you become a blue shirt, and we make it a prideful uh thing to become a blue shirt. Like you should you should, you know, want to become a blue shirt. For 90 days, you have to wear normal civilian clothing with a big blue high-vis vest that says trainee on the back. So you really stand out. And and that doesn't matter, by the way, if you're a high school graduate or a trade school graduate or a 20-year journeyman professional, that the standard is the same, it's a leveler. Um, and and we do that very intentfully. And and and and by the way, it's okay not to like those things. That's fine. That's part of the process. If you if you are like, no, I'm I'm not gonna tuck my shirt in and I don't want to be on time, no problem. You are not a bad person, you're just not the right person to work here. And and finding the people that are not the right person to work here as well as the people that are the right people to work, both of those things are equal. So we have this filtering process. Um, you have to go through your 90 days to to get your blue shirt. But you know what? When I've had we've had employees several times in tears on their 90th day, because we do a ceremony, we get the entire company together and we uh present you with your shirts. You get 11 shirts and 11 trousers or shorts or however the makeup is, and it has your name on it. And that's really that is your name. That is next to the company logo, and that is, you know, you you've got this sense of belonging now of being part of the team, and you're no longer this trainee in the trainee vest. And we also issue them with a company uh toolbox, a blue rollaround toolbox. Um, and it's a it's a point of pride for people. Um, so yeah, we we get pushback, but that's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 15:09

Pushback is a good thing, and that's kind of a mil is that kind of that's kind of a military thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

I think look, you know, we we're not the military, obviously, and the patrols will say, you know, this is too much like the military. No, it isn't. What it is is the military taught me why standards matter. You know, I I was when I was in the military, I had fellow soldiers that would complain why do we need to polish our boots? Why do we need to iron you know perfect creases into our uniform when we're in the battlefield in Iraq or Afghanistan? It doesn't make a difference. No, uh a crease in your uniform does not make a difference. What it does though is it trains you to look for the little details, it trains you to care about the small details. Then when you're on the battlefield and you notice something different, you you pick up on that quicker. So it's it isn't about the uniform being perfect, it's about the other skills that that teaches you that you can apply. For example, when we say that your turnout, how you look at work is to a certain standard, the the shirt being tucked in, and you your shirt comes untucked during the day, and then you have the mental um uh capacity and fortitude to stop yourself and tuck your shirt back in again. When you're doing something on the job and something goes wrong, you know to catch it, you know to change it, you know to change that part out and not just cover it up, right? It's it's part of a bigger uh sense of rules that and and and disciplines, it's disciplines that we're teaching them in order to facilitate high-quality product.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

So when I started working with you guys, I I was I had a staffing company, and everybody knows how staffing works. You get loaned out to a place, and nowadays it's become more where it's kind of the real low-level type worker, it could and it's expensive to do, and there's not a lot of um investigation for the people. It's like, hey, do you have a pulse? Great drug test, and we'll send you over to wherever we're at. So when I was when Tony found out I was just doing um through momentum higher and solutions, just doing outsourced recruiting, like I was like working for you. He was like, Wow, that would probably work because the people are gonna come and work direct. And I also act when I call, I call like I'm from Air 20. So they don't know I'm outsourced, which is part of the game. I don't lots of people do not want to have you contacted by a third party. That's a no-no, and especially now, no industrial worker needs to use a staffing company. So you've actually taken advantage of that. How did you see that when you first started doing it?

SPEAKER_00 17:43

At the end of the day, we we outsource, but we can't do it internally, and and that isn't just with recruitment and hiring, we we outsource sub-assemblies, and and that's part of the scale. As an entrepreneur, you know, the growth of the infrastructure always become comes behind the revenue. So, you know, the the sales are happening much quicker than we can actually build the infrastructure behind it. So we have to rely on partners to help us do that. You know, we were new to the valley. We came here in 2017 as three people and we didn't know anybody, you know, three foreigners in a foreign land in essence. Um and we would we needed to first of all tap into and tie into the local um infrastructure in the local community, um, and then and have that community help us grow our business. So absolutely that is fundamentally part of the reason we've been able to scale in such a short amount of time.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

And the um the other thing is you guys do a lot of training too. Because a lot of times, if you're hiring people in the HVAC area, you know, they'll take somebody if they can braise. Or they don't they got they've got to be able to do the basics, and they'll take a person out of school, which is which is opens up a lot more doors. I mean, how do you balance that? Because I have a lot of customers that go, oh, you know, training's so expensive. And I'm like, well, listen, you if you're not training yourself, then you're you're free agent paying, which means you're gonna pay more. So I uh you've probably learned that you gotta homegrown some of your own people.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

For sure, especially at scale, and especially in today's market, and especially in Arizona. You know, we got a huge amount of industrial development going on, and it is a uh competitive recruitment and jobs market. And we look at the talent pipeline as a long-term um task. It isn't it isn't something you can switch on and off, first of all, and it cannot be reactive. If it's reactive, you will always be behind the curve. We learned that very, very early on. You know, we we were having you know 200% growth per year at one point, and and you can't do that in a reactive measure. You you must plan for that in a more long-term way. So, this is a whole life cycle approach. We you know, we never turn this off. And we look at hard skills and soft skills. We need hard skills, absolutely, and we have no problem recruiting you know, trained professionals that are you know between one and 20 years or 30 years of experience. You know, there's no problem with that. Um, but also we don't shy away from people who have no hard skill experience, um, but they have tremendous soft skills, and we've had some of our best employees in in the trades come through. I'll tell you a story about a uh a young lad called Evan. Evan's uh was when he came to us a high school graduate. Um, his mum had kicked him out for the day to say, go and get a job, um, you know, and he was on the sofa playing. The good old days. Yeah, yeah. I mean, this was only this was only maybe two, three years ago. Um, kicked him out and said, Go and go and get a job today. Don't come back till you get a job. Uh, and he was just driving around the industrial estates, and you know, we're not in a very prominent area, you know, and and he knocked on the door. He didn't have a resume, he didn't, maybe wasn't the best prepared. And the the person at the door kind of you know was a good gatekeeper, if you like, and and kind of pushed him away. But I heard the conversation, so I put my head out there, I said, Who is that? Oh, it was just a kid looking for a job. I was go get him, bring him back. He came and sat in. I said, uh, first of all, you know, thanks for coming out, appreciate it. You know, I I I really respect that getting off and trying to go and finding a job, right? Not just sitting on your your email account and sending 50 resumes an hour, right? That's not not the way to do it. I said, have you ever have you ever held a drill before or an impact driver before? No. Have you ever, you know, help your parents work on a no. I was like, okay. He's like, but I want to learn and I'm and I want to get a job and I want to do right. And you know, I messed about in high school, but you know, I'm I want to make I was like, we're gonna give you a chance, right? We're gonna give you a chance because I could see in him the soft skills and the commitment. And we we taught him the rules 6 a.m. You know, if you're late, you're late. And in your probation period, three times and you're you're gone. Um and you know, the the uniform standards and everything else. And he applied himself, and he's one of our top tradespeople now, three years later. Um, he doesn't have the 20, 30 years of experience, but he's applied himself in the right way, and we can train, we can train all the disciplines. Uh, it's much easier, obviously, if you already have those. Uh those uh disciplines in in in hand already. But we would take some somebody with tremendous soft skills but no hard skills over someone with tremendous hard skills but is the wrong cultural fit, you know, every day.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Yeah, because you you probably realize this over the years. One of my least favorite pires is the welder. Yeah. Because welders think they're a brain surgeon. I mean, they they they're they're they they say stuff about well, I only weld. Like if you I just sit here and weld all day, and if stuff falls on the floor, you know, somebody else picks it up. And that just drives me crazy. So when I interview welders, I always go, um, so you do know that if there's not welding, you've got to help with other stuff. And if and I may not know that or not, but I'm testing the guy, and if I hear, no, nope, I just weld, and then I usually go, Well, that's great. We're gonna get we're gonna get back with you when we can do an interview or blah, blah, blah. And I end the phone call. Have you run it? I've I guarantee you run into people like that.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

All the time, but it's that's a good filter for us. Yeah. So when we when we started to build the manufacturing part of the company, we we we brought in three foundational cultural rules that we live by to this day. Um, one of them is GSD, get stuff done, right? And and ultimately we are a get stuff done organization. If we're not getting stuff done, the bills are not being paid. So everything that we do, get stuff done, GSD. One of them is work with what you have, right? We're a growing company in hypergrowth right now, and sometimes we don't have the tools and the equipment that is needed to do that particular job. But we have some other tools and equipment. We don't want people that are going to complain because they don't have the right tool. We'll get the right tool, but we don't have it at 9 a.m. on a Monday morning, and you still need to work with what you have. That's part of that entrepreneurial startup spirit. So work with what you have. But the really important one, and this is from the CEO from the top to the bottom, right? It is see it, sort it. What that means is if you see something, you sort it out. You don't go, that's not my job. We do not have that culture here. If you walk past a trash can, we have a where what's called the warehouse operations team. They're responsible for the forklifts and the shelving and the inventory, but also the clumsiness of the shop floor. But if you're a director of production or the CEO or a welder and you walk past a full trash can, you empty that trash can. If you go past the uh a unit and it has a problem on it that you've seen, you might not be working on that unit. That might be another crew that's working on you, but you see that problem, you don't just think, well, that's somebody else's problem. You work for Air Tool. You go and get the supervisor, hey, I'm just letting you know I saw this thing, and you make sure you take it all the way through to completion. And that is one of our, that is probably our primary um cultural rule that we have that is followed by everybody, that is enforced by everyone. And actually, if you root cause analysis, our success, ownership by everybody, everywhere, all the time is part of the success.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

Now you mentioned something that I like a lot, and it's even more prevalent today, or that it's important, but a lot less and less people do it. The pop-in guy, the dude that came by, or the woman, whoever it was that had the sack to walk in and knock on the door. I always tell people I work with, I say, listen, I don't care where you hire them from, because again, I'm not getting paid a commission and stuff because I'm working as an hourly person. I be aware of people that come by, like your receptionists and stuff. I said, because they might be some of the best people. They might be a person that isn't doesn't want to uh go through indeed, or they don't want to mail their res or uh facts or facts. Oh God, it said facts, or scan their resume and send it to somebody else. So they're going around banging on doors, and those are sometimes the best people. So spend a couple minutes to talk to them.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Sure, it shows something that they've they've got up, they've gone out, and and also it you know, it takes a lot to face rejection, right? To go to an employer's door and to ask for a job in this day and age, that is a rare commodity. And and actually, if you strip that back, what that means psychologically for that person, they they they're showing a lot of the traits that we're after, right? Get stuff done, right? See it, sort it, work with what you have, right? All those three things are in that person who comes to the door, knocks on the door, and asks for a job. Okay, the resume might not be perfect. They might not, you know, Evan didn't have a resume when he came to the door, but he but if I'd have not given him the time of day at that point, we'd have lost a great tradesperson. So, you know, look, sometimes we have to filter. We had one position that had 170 applicants, right? You can't interview every single one of those. It was impossible. So, you know, there is a time for filtering the applicants and all the rest of it. But what I would say as an employer um is be open to all avenues of finding great talent. One of the things we train on regularly now, we have um uh about 13 leaders in the organization, and we train regularly now on hey, you may have been a great technician that has promoted through the ranks or a journeyman, you know, electrician that has promoted through the ranks. You're now a full-time recruiter and retainer. Your job now is not to be an electrician anymore, your job is to find the best people and keep the best people on the team. That is your full-time job, and that's really what we we preach at AirTo.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Do um I think the other thing that most people don't understand about the industrial business and what and why it's hard to find people. First of all, we don't encourage people enough to do it. We've spent, we've kind of demonized the trades or kind of saying, oh hey, if I can't make it, I'll drive a truck. And I'm like, you don't have any idea what you're talking about. But the other thing is, is these people are not, as I refer to, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, writing your resume. It's not gonna be something that looks like an English paper. So you've got to kind of talk to somebody. The guy that doesn't have the best resume, or just has basically his employment, that's good enough for that job. You don't need to, you're not gonna be the CFO of you know uh the bank. This is a a hand, this is a what I call it, I call it a do job. You've got to do something. Um, and you might not be the best speaker either, but sometimes that's not a bad thing either, because you're not gonna be talking all day anyway. Do you what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 28:29

The the right approach for the right job, right? Exactly. We we we shouldn't be having the same recruitment and interview process across the board. Because what we're looking for in a CFO, in uh a mechanical engineer, in a in a forklift operator, they're different things. And and we should tailor our approach to get the best out of them at that point. A great example of that. Uh, personally speaking, and what I what I push on to the rest of my organization is I am not a big fan of the formal interview. I know some people are, and and some people swear by it, and it's great for some people, but at Air 20, I'm looking for the best people at the job that they're gonna do. And their job that they do is not sit in an interview room asking interview or answering interview questions. So we have a rule that we we go out off-site and it's we either have lunch or coffee, some you know, something like that, where they can be a little bit more relaxed. Um, and what we're looking for is who you are, not the suit that you wear for your interview and the way you've done your hair and the way you answer the perfectly scripted AI interview questions, right? Because we've seen many of those. Um, this is how you answer this question. Um when an interviewer says this, this is what you should say. I don't want the pre-rehearsed baloney. What we want is to know who you are, what is your personality like? How do you handle talking to a server, for example? You know, you you learn so much, by the way, when you're having lunch with someone and how either open or receptive they are or dismissive of a server. That that will tell you so much about somebody. Um, so we do that. You know, my biggest fear or my biggest belief is how many amazing people at the job, they would have been amazing at that job, but they lost that job or they never got that opportunity because of interview nerves. Interview nerves, you know. I've never had to interview in my life. Personally, I've been lucky enough that I've never had to interview my life, but I I could guarantee I would not, I would, I would tank an interview. I know I know I would. Um, but I'm the best at my job, you know, and and how how sad it would be not to get to that level.

SPEAKER_01 30:31

Now, the pen the the panel interview is what I always use, I coach students on, where you get the three people in the room. And usually they're the people that have either um haven't been the best doobies for the last couple weeks, so they're relegated to doing the interviewing. And you know, you get all, and when I when you sit down and then you have this sheet in front of you, because now there's all the questions, so you stop having a conversation and you start like listing the bibliography of the whole thing, and that's where you get these that AI answers. They come from, hey, I'm memorizing stuff so you're you're not rolling with the flow and you're talking more about stuff that's out here when it should be more personal.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Um, and I've always told people if you can get, if you can kind of latch on to some type of person or something that they're good at, whether you like a certain sport or you look the guy up or the girl up before you interviewed, and I found out where they went to school. And once you break that code, people want to hire people that they like. I mean, we all know that. For sure. So you're just feeling good about yourself. Um, and I and I don't know why people don't do that anymore. When I was a kid, you have to go to the library to look this stuff up. Now all you have to do is look on your phone, but people are lazy. Um, I talked to a guy today, hundred grand sales job, or he's getting hired for, and he didn't look up the company. And I'm like, how I just don't, it just drives me absolutely crazy. And these are people that should know. I get it when you're talking to people that are making like 18 or 20 bucks an hour. I I think it's bad, but I understand it more. But if you're somebody with a four-year degree and you know, 15 years of sales and you didn't look up the company, well, I didn't have time. Well, you knew you had an interview, and this would have taken you five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Do you run into that at all? Yeah, but again, for me, that's a positive because it's a filter. Yeah. You know, I only want the very best people. And it's great when I meet a candidate who has no idea who I am or who the business is, because straight away I know, well, you're not going to research a client and you're not going to put the extra effort in for a project. So for me, it's just it's it's it's it's perfect because it shows that they don't want that job and that they're not right for that job. So I see positives even in the negatives, like as a as an employer. So I would say to everybody, you know, if you want the job, if you want the job, take the job. Don't leave anything on the table. Research the company. Because as an employer, I'll tell you, if you've not researched the company before you walk in that room, I know you don't want it, and then I don't want you. So yeah, I mean for me, it's it's a natural filter.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

And it's interesting because this is happening more and more, the lack of uh what I would call prep before you meet with somebody that's probably gonna hire you for a significant amount of money, plus you're talking about benefits and all the rest of this stuff. So you're and then you're then you're going out with your buddies and pounding a bunch of beers, whining that you can't get a job. But they didn't see that part. So it's like still hidden. And when I when I talk to people about that, they almost get angry because they start to figure out that oh, this this is about me. Yeah, it's not about the job. I all I would have had to do was look for five minutes. I could have done it in the elevator, they still don't do it, so it it's shocking to me.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Mike, no one's coming to help you, right? Nobody is coming to help you. If you don't do it, if you don't take control yourself, nobody's gonna bail you out. And it all it lives and dies by your effort. And if you don't want to put any effort in, fine, no problem, that's okay. But you're not gonna get the reward. If you want that hundred thousand dollar job, you need to earn that hundred thousand dollars. And you earn that through preparing correctly, through showing up the right way, you know. And and and if you don't, you only you know, preparate prior preparation and planning prevents poor performance. I mean, we call it the six P's, it's it's something that I've lived by for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 34:41

It was interesting because my I've said it on here before, my dad used to say, because I used to ask questions like this, and he'd go, hey man, the day the world needs ditch diggers. And that's pretty much it. You know, some people just don't have the gumption to figure it out. Um and let's switch gears a little bit. Um, tell us how you got involved in uh the tech council, and then you've been um you've been doing some stuff over at GCU because I saw you guys over there. Tell us a little bit about that because that's kind of a kind of like are you familiar with Mike Rowe, the dirty jobs guy? This that's the kind of stuff that I watched him today. He talks about this non-stop, and there he's always trying to uh support programs or illuminate programs like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

So, what are your guys doing with that? Absolutely. So, you know, I I mentioned earlier when we came to Arizona in 2017, we didn't know anybody, right? There were three of us and we didn't know anybody. And the first thing we did was get involved with ACA, with the Arizona Commerce Authority, with GPEC, the Greater Phoenix Economic Council, and with the Arizona Tech Council. We we got involved straight away and and they helped us, coached us, they brought in, uh we got mentors, you know, we were just, hey, this is your mentor. Now this guy's gonna help you, you know, move through this this field. And we would not be where we are today without that. And then after the kind of pomp and ceremony of 2017 of being the new kids on the block and meeting all these great people, we then spent the next nine years building a company. And that was head down working hard, growing a company uh through COVID and all those other challenges. And then this is the first year, 2026 is the first year where the business has started to become self-reliant. Uh, and and we're not in the business as much, which is a weird feeling. Um, you know, we've been in it on the front line, fighting the fires for the last, you know, 14 years. Um, and now, you know, the team, because of our recruitment policies, because of our cultural policies around um, you know, the rules and procedures at Air2O, the team now has become, as Steve Jobs would say, you know, A people, hire A people and enforce A people. Like we we we see that that that is happening, that momentum has started to build at Air 20. Well, what that means for me and the other founders is that we're not needed as much. You know, the child does not need us as much. And and so it was for me, it was a natural progression, therefore, I'm still in the business and I'm still there every day, but I have more time now to give back. And we would not be here without the local Arizona um ecosystem that helps us. And we've learned and got a lot of scars, and we've done it the wrong way and the right way, and we've been down all the wrong paths. And what I wanted to do this year was get back in touch with the community and and explain our story and say, hey, you know, we're proof that being part of the ACA venture ready program works. You know, networking with AZTC works, being part of GPEC works, right? These are good organizations that that help if if you take the help that's offered. Now, it isn't, you know, you it isn't help with no uh cost. You have to put in the hard work, which we've done for the last nine years. Uh, but now I'm ready to, we're ready to give back, and and that's what we're doing. Um, and really, you know, we are, I am from the UK, but but Arizona is my home. Phoenix is my home. My children were born here, you know, and and this is where I'm gonna stay for the rest of my life. And uh, and I'm very proud of Phoenix and Arizona, and I want it to do well, and and I'm gonna do everything that I can do to promote the organizations, the businesses, the ecosystems, um, to to the benefit of all in just my own small way. And if that's um going to a manufacturing showcase at GCU and presenting, being the presenting sponsor there and talking a little bit of our story and and inspiring the next generation of entrepreneurs, then that's that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

Because Phoenix is traditionally can be on the Phoenix area, because you know, you can't every time you say Phoenix when you're in Scottsdale, somebody corrects you, and that just drives me crazy. Because I I think of the the lovey on um Gilligan's Island, uh Schnotchdale, you know, all the time, like my kid is doing that now. It drives me crazy. Um, but the area around here has generally been there's a lot of people from a lot of different places, and it's not easy to do what you did in the amount of time. I know people that have been trying to do this for 10 years and they can't crack it. What do you think? Did you guys just put your nose to the grindstone harder, or did you employ uh people that helped you in town to get this type of recognition or get comfortable talking about all these topics and being in front of people? I mean, that's not an easy thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 39:24

It isn't, but but but nothing worth doing is is easier, right? I when I was in the military, I had a great leader that that looked at me one day and and he hiked to the top of this ridge um and came back and he showed me a photo of this amazing view, and I said, God, that must have taken you all day. And he went, Tom, there's no shortcut shortcut to any place worth going. And that's stuck in my head forever, and it's true, there's no shortcut to any place worth going. So it is hard. Um, and I think the reality is it's it's a balance of both things. You have to work hard, you have to put your nose to the grindstone, as you said. Um, and but also you need to rely on help from those around you. Um, you know, you can work as hard as you want, but if you're on your own, you're less likely to be successful. We've had great mentorship. Um, you know, Al is in in here with us now, and uh we met Al through the Venture Ready program. He was he was the the guy the state gave us as our marketing guru, you know, and and uh and Al and I have stayed together for for the last 10 years. Um and and many more examples of that. So it is a balance of both, of accepting help um and and working hard to this day. Uh, and anybody that knows me and who I network with, I never turn down help or advice, you know, no matter what we've been through, if there's another blind spot or another way of doing things, you know, we should never be ignorant to that.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

Okay, so we're we're at this point in time. What what are you looking at for the next five years? What's the what's that gonna look like? I know you're moving into a new building because Tony was pointing at Timmy about six months ago. What's going on with that? And where do you see you guys going in the next five?

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Yes, we have a six times expansion, so six times bigger than where we're at now, so it's a huge expansion. Uh, we really invested in this for the long run. Um, we did not anticipate when we got our current facility in 2021 that we would outgrow it in four years, three years. And we don't want to make that same mistake twice. We are being artificially held back right now in growth because we are limited to square footage. Um, you know, we can recruit the right people and we have got a good talent pipeline coming through, but we physically don't have a square inch available in the facility to build more. So the new facility is critical. Um we've had some delays, we're over those delays now, and we are into full construction. We'll have a partial um occupancy at the end of August, and then we'll have a full occupancy, uh, full admin, all the offices, everything finished in December. So uh Q1 2027 will be hitting the ground running. Right now, we we are building uh the largest backlog that we've ever had. Um we've already met revenue this year, um and uh targeted revenue this year, and we're continuing to build our backlog. The next five years shows no signs of slowing down. Um, we are uh engaged in multiple mission critical markets. So a lot of people talk to me about you know, is it all funded by data center? Don't get wrong, data center is great, but we we limit our exposure to any one vertical market. So data center is just part of the pie that we're working on. We are uh have great uh traction in healthcare, in pharmaceutical, in lithium-ion manufacturing, in clean room fabs. Um, so we've got many, many different verticals that we're working on. You know, I would like to see Air To O somewhere in the region of you know a quarter of a billion dollar uh revenue in in the next five years.

SPEAKER_01 42:36

So the and we were talking about before we got on this gig, about reliance on one thing, you know, when you die on that hill if something happens. Have you guys how'd you learn that? Not to, hey, we want to do their business, but we don't want to sell out for it because if something slows down, then you slow down.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

So we learned from that mistake twice. So actually you could say we didn't learn from it the first time. So we actually were burnt pretty badly in our history in two different um vertical market collapses. Um, and and the reason for that is we're human. And and humans, it's incredibly difficult to turn away good work. Uh, and so we could do a hundred million this year alone in data center. That is very easy. We are too, we are getting, you know, we are getting clients asking, single clients asking for $70 million of just you know single source component uh systems. So we we could do that, and it's very difficult when the check is in front of you to say no. Um and that's why we said yes twice in the past and and got burnt both times. So now we we have learned from those mistakes, you know. Fill me once, you know, fill me twice. So it is difficult. Um, and we have had to be be make our business strategy more robust uh and more uh robust against single vertical market fluctuation. Um, so that's not only vertical market application. But also geographical, right? We all remember 2008.

SPEAKER_01 44:06

I'm still drinking from that day.

SPEAKER_00 44:08

Yeah. So the only reason Air 20 survived the post-08 credit uh crunch was we moved operations to the Middle East. Because although Europe and North America was in a recession, the Middle East was booming. So again, we we are very aware of political, geopolitical issues. So we we you know we keep ourselves you know diversified across multiple geographies, multiple, multiple vertical markets, so that we can maintain that growth.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

Does um so I would imagine because you talked about the constraints of the building and stuff, when you commit to that one big check, then you're kind of you're tied to that rock as far as it goes. Sure. And then you can't do another bit of business. So when that business goes dormant or whatever happens to it, does the was um I know you guys did the grow farms and that stuff. Was that one of the bumps? Um, the pot the pot craze when everybody was, oh my god, pot's gonna be everywhere. Well, it is, but it's not like they thought. Was that kind of a bump in the road?

SPEAKER_00 45:09

For sure. We did tens of millions of dollars in in what we call indoor agriculture. So it's not just the um the majority of it is is uh is uh marijuana and cannabis. Uh but we also just did irregular leafy greens as well, um, you know, internal, um, what we call vertical um agriculture, indoor ag. And yeah, when that when when when that market burst, all of a sudden we had people and product lines that that were were no longer you know being utilized. So that we we learned from that. We learned from um the big beautiful bill, July 15th of last year, when all of the EV subsidiaries ended. Um, one of our major markets was lithium-ion manufacturing. Well, one of the big proponents of lithium ion manufacturing is EV. So we lost about $20 million in auto pipeline in one day. Um, and again, it just shows the the you know the need to be diversified.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

The government really is a big help when you're running a business. They you just never you can't stop that. It's like a little, it's like a guillotine that sits over your head. Yeah, and you you almost got to try to predict the future. And and the problem we have now is everything changes every two years. That's a real hard deal as a business to go, hey, I've only can map out two years because I don't know what's gonna happen. Do you guys have that thought in your head too? Based on the swinging back and forth between, you know, the energy thing, the no oil, too much oil. I mean, it's gotta be complicated when you're planning a business of this size.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

For sure. I mean, we have a board um and we um we have quarterly board meetings, we meet four times a year with with with our board who are experts in in global politics and energy markets and uh and the rest of it. And and ultimately, you we we can't predict the future. What we can do is mitigate as best as we can, and and and you do that by being diversified, uh, by not putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak, um, and making sure that you have a robust pipeline. Um, so you know, we have the governance there, we have the mitigation measures there, we also have the scars. You know, we've done it the wrong way and survived by the skin of our teeth. Um, I mean, there was a period where you know the executive group at Air To O took no salary for maybe four months to maintain everybody else's employment because we had not you know learned from our mistakes. So we we've got the scars, um, and we hope now that we have you know the experience and and and the stewardship in the future that we can we can you know uh stabilize the bolt. But anything could happen, you know, tomorrow. You we you know we're looking at Cuba right now as potentially uh uh another another uh conflicts on the horizon, and who knows what that will cause. You know, we're seeing aluminum uh double in price, copper is up, I think, 60%. And and these things are happening, you know, very, very quickly. My logistics cost, you know, to move my units is a lot of money. Yeah, that's and the diesel cost has doubled, you know. So and these are little fluctuations that we have to just be aware of and and really long-term planning.

SPEAKER_01 47:58

I mean, this has been a great talk, and like I told you, we blow through time pretty fast. But why don't uh to close you out what you've been saying, give us uh what's one thing that you'd like uh people to know about Air 20? What do you think is the what's the most important thing you think going forward for your company?

SPEAKER_00 48:18

I I like two two answers, if I can. The most important thing at Air 20 are the people. And and that that is a cheesy thing to say, but it is absolutely true. Many times in staff meetings I will say it doesn't matter if we build air conditioning units or fence posts, right? The products is what we have to offer to the market. What's important is we're building a company of people that spend more time together than we do with our own families. Let's make it the best place that we can. Uh so that's that's number one, that's what's most important to Air To O. In terms of what's most important to the the future of Air To O, um, it it it would be innovation and and pushing those boundaries. I think we we any organization that grows and gets to a certain you know scale always runs the risk of becoming complacent and and not pushing those those boundaries anymore and losing the culture, becoming too corporate US, right, corporate America. Um, and we've always, myself, the leadership team, and and and everybody there too, have got to keep an eye on what made us, you know, get to where we are. It is true, what got you there, what got you here, won't get you there, but that is not a blanket statement. Some of what got you here needs to stay.

SPEAKER_01 49:36

Great, Tom. It's been great talking with you, and I appreciate you spending the time. This is my case for the hiring confessional. Remember what I say every time? If you haven't talked to a friend lately, reach out to them and see how they're doing. Plus, you get to hang out. That's the best part. Have a good day.