My father happens to run the HVAC supplier now, but only because Grandpa let him have it after retiring.
Grandpa genuinely built this place with his own hands, started as the only employee, and worked for approximately forty years to turn it into what it has become.
It’s true that he is mean as a snake, although he is actually smart, with a mind for business, and an indomitable spirit. I asked him what made him get into this line of work, because back then it was a relatively odd path for a farm worker to take. “How did you get into the A/C equipment business?” I asked him, and he said “because I didn’t enjoy being hot all the time.” He explained how at the time, everyone didn’t have A/C equipment, especially farming folk. In the substantial cities cooling systems were starting to catch on with the upper classes, but there wasn’t a great deal of tech out here, aside from using a fan. For my Grandpa it was as simple as driving off the farm and on his way to the city, where he went to numerous ventilation specialists looking for an apprenticeship. It would have been idiotic to attempt to learn about cooling without learning about heating first, because they are certainly two sides of the same coin. The more stories he tells to me, the less details he gives, but the end of the story is that he moved back out to the country and founded the initial Heating, Ventilation & A/C supplier in this whole region. I suppose he is happy to be retired and be done with the excruciating paperwork, although he still talks trash about how Dad is running the Heating, Ventilation & A/C supplier.