By: Alexandra Perez
Mike Petitt did not set out to build a company with three locations and multiple crews. When he left the company where he had spent 17 years, his plan was simpler: take a few months off, go bass fishing, and eventually find another job in HVAC. He had worked his way from install mechanic to service technician to home solutions advisor. He knew equipment, customers, and sales. What he did not know was how little that prepared him for ownership.
In the beginning, Petitt was thinking like a worker, because work was what he understood. A friend called the day after he quit, asking if Petitt could send someone to fix an AC unit. Petitt no longer had a company behind him, but he still had his tools. He went himself. That job led to an installation. A neighbor walked over. Another installation followed. By the end of the day, Petitt asked his wife what she thought about starting an HVAC company. Her answer was steady. If he set his mind to it, he would succeed.
So he started with a tool bag, a work ethic, and a willingness to figure it out. For the next 12 years, Petitt operated mostly alone. He ran service calls, made sales, completed installs, answered phones, scheduled customers, handled bookkeeping, and carried the pressure that often hides behind the word entrepreneur. He was skilled, but stretched. The business was moving, yet his life was slipping out of order.
Petitt does not soften that chapter. He speaks about addiction, burnout, and the desperation that comes from being trapped inside a life you built but no longer know how to carry. Three years ago, lying in bed, he reached for something deeper than discipline. He cried out to God, then began rebuilding from the inside out. A business coach taught him structure, leadership, and scale. A life coach gave him a framework he still follows: God, family, health, career, and finances.
The reset became a rhythm. Petitt began waking at four in the morning to pray and read scripture. He quit smoking. At around 280 pounds, he hired a trainer and started working out five days a week. Then came his first 5K. Then a bigger question. Could he complete a marathon? On his 52nd birthday, he completed 26.2 miles on a treadmill at his local gym, surrounded by a team who helped provide the food and liquids he needed to finish in four hours.
The lesson was bigger than the finish line. Petitt had spent years believing certain things were meant for other people: business growth, financial order, health, endurance, peace. Then his thinking changed. As he puts it, “I just freaking started believing.”
Belief, though, did not make him careless. It made him more intentional. His early hires reshaped everything. His son Brett, once shy and hesitant about a customer-facing trade, developed into a highly technical leader. Ashley Payne came in to answer phones and support the office, eventually becoming director of support. After Chad Harrison joined the company, Logan, another son, moved from service technician into a home solutions advisor role and began thriving. Then came Harrison, a childhood friend and seasoned operator whose attention to detail gave the company a new backbone.
Petitt is quick to say growth requires the right people in the right seats. He placed himself under Harrison’s operational leadership, a decision that reveals uncommon humility. His sons report to Harrison, too, a structure designed to protect both the business and the family. Petitt sees himself now as a visionary and culture builder, not the man who must control every lever.
That culture is built around honor, faith, and a high view of the trades. To Petitt, heating, air conditioning, and plumbing work are essential professions. That belief shapes the way he leads his team and prices the work. He is not interested in being the cheapest company in the market. He is interested in delivering the kind of service that makes premium pricing honest.
His standard is not just about polished trucks, clean uniforms, and answered phones, although those things matter. It is about dignity, for customers and employees alike. “I refuse to sacrifice their dignity by giving the customer a cheap price,” he says.
That conviction shows up most clearly when something goes wrong. Petitt remembers a single mother who left a one-star review after feeling pushed toward a replacement system when all she could manage was a temporary repair. He called her himself, listened, paid the bill from the company that got her air running, and gave her his personal cell number. She changed the review to five stars and became a loyal customer. For Petitt, the numbers matter, but they are not the point. The numbers follow when people are cared for well.
His faith works the same way. It is not a slogan on a wall. It is daily practice, expressed through character, integrity, service, and the hope that his life gives someone else permission to rise. He wants people to see his growth and realize that change is possible.
In Petitt’s world, excellence is not perfection. It is movement. One better decision. One stronger habit. One honest conversation. One more day of putting the world back in order. “Every day. Be better today than you were yesterday. And that’s excellent.”
That is the legacy taking shape now, not only in trucks, teams, reviews, or revenue, but in a life rebuilt with purpose and carried forward through faith, family, discipline, and the unshakable resolve of Mike Petitt.
