It was April of 2020, a particularly challenging time, when Cory Anderson was promoted to the presidency at his family-owned HVACR distribution firm, M&A Supply Company Inc.

Anderson was on an M&A-sponsored dealer trip — a Caribbean cruise to reward the company’s best customers — when his father Eddie Anderson, the CEO, made the announcement. The coronavirus pandemic had just taken hold in the U.S. and around the world, and the outlook for businesses was anything but certain.

Anderson had expected to one day become the M&A president, but the announcement still took him by surprise.

“I got a little chuckle out of it too, with that timing, thinking ‘Great, here we go,’” he said recently. “At that time, nobody knew what the future held.”

But M&A made it, with Anderson’s guidance, through that difficult time — thriving, even, despite supply chain and labor difficulties and the safety precautions that had to be taken. “I’m very, very thankful we’re not in that situation anymore,” Anderson said.

The company was founded in 1969 by Cory Anderson’s grandfather, Ed, and a partner, Richard Moss (the “M” in M&A), as a building materials company. The Anderson family soon bought out Moss, and has owned and run M&A ever since. Cory Anderson has held a number of jobs there, and was a regional sales manager before taking his current role.

Following a recent expansion, M&A, based in Nashville, Tenn., has 17 locations across four states: Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.

Distribution Trends recently sat down with Anderson to discuss M&A and the state of the HVACR industry, and the state of distribution in particular. Here, edited and condensed, is the conversation.

DT: I noticed on your website that you didn’t start out in HVAC. But that’s your sole focus right now. How did that evolution come about?

Anderson: So when my grandfather started M&A back in 1969, his background was just more in general building supplies — roofing, siding, rain-carrying products. And we did do HVAC supplies pretty much from day one, but we did not do any equipment. So in 1990, that’s when we entered the equipment market for HVAC. We kind of got started there, and it took off really, really well.

We found out that we were pretty good at it and we really had a future in it. And it was just a few years later that we decided that was going to be the sole focus. So at that point, we were able to sell off a portion of some of the stuff we were doing, like with the rain-carrying products and whatnot, and then some of the stuff we just got out of all together. But that became the sole focus in the early to mid-’90s.

So from there, that’s been exactly what we’ve been doing since then.

DT: What is your view of the HVAC industry right now, in terms of manufacturing, distribution, contracting — everything? Do you see it going in a positive direction?

Anderson: I have a very positive view of the industry overall.

Our industry was able to weather COVID very, very well, and not just survive. Between manufacturers, distributors, and contractors we were all able to thrive. Part of it (was) having that essential worker status. We never shut down, we never took time off. We took precautions that we had to, but, you know, we were able to operate throughout all of it.

So the industry as a whole, I think, is more important than ever. Each part has challenges; manufacturers have a ton of challenges when it comes to government regulations about what type of equipment’s got to be out, and all the changes that come with that.

That results in a lot of challenges for distributors, to make sure our inventory mix is right, that we don’t get off balance, and that’s terribly challenging. And then, the contractors. Just dealing with general public is difficult, and they’re having to play similar games. All of us are, up the chain, making sure that they get the right product.

The only fear I have is just kind of a shallow labor pool that I think everybody in the industry has, you know: manufacturers, distributors, of course, and then contractors. I hear that everywhere I go, especially skilled service techs for our contracting partners.

Almost everybody says, “Hey, I can do a whole lot more business if I just had, you know, one or two more here, or another group of installers.” So I think that’s really the only thing that’s holding us back.

DT: What is the one change in society or the economy that would be of the most benefit right now to HVAC distribution? It has to be something achievable, not like, you know, everybody gets $10,000 for a retrofit.

Anderson: Yeah, that would be nice.

My answer to that goes back to kind of what we’re just talking about, I think. If we could figure out a way to attract more talent to these jobs that are open in the industry.

I mean, there’re great careers to be had at every level. We have great careers on the distribution side, where we have a lot of stories to tell where somebody started as a driver for us and then they worked really, really hard and learned everything they could along the way, and now they have a key regional sales manager position for us. We have stories like that. And that’s all still available.

College education is great, but really, for us it comes down to hard work, discipline, going above and beyond. That’s the intangible stuff that makes a bigger difference for us. So, I think between other distributors like us, or contractors, figuring out a way that, maybe at the high school level, to do a better job of showing what is available.

We see regional success with that, where there’re trade schools that do pretty well. There’s a lot more benefit to starting off in HVAC early on, after high school, versus spending two, three, four or five years in college and not really having a clear direction.

From an economy standpoint, lower interest rates would be really good, right?

DT: How would you go about attracting more people to HVAC careers? We write about different incentives and education, training programs all the time. It seems like so many organizations and companies are on top of this, and yet it’s just not enough.

Anderson: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s going to take just the overall partnership with (a) group of distributors and contractors to really try to make a significant impact. Because, like I said before, it’s very much region by region. Some areas have something in place that works well, but most do not.

So I think some training element would be a huge part of it. And I think being able to kind of show what a legitimate career path could look like. That’s some of the stuff that might be missing.

DT: Without giving away any company or trade secrets, how would you sum up, in a couple of sentences, your best advice for fellow distributors?

Anderson: What’s helped us is to actually identify what our target contractor looks like, from a size perspective, to the segment of market that they’re in, whether it’s new construction, replacement, commercial, residential. Figuring out what you want that to look like, and then being obsessive about building value to that type of customer, because that’s going to make it easier to retain, but also to recruit new dealers, new contractors.

That’s been very, very helpful. And then, other than that, and this is the one that, it’s so simple — but it’s a big deal — is really just: We train our people to do what you say you’re going to do. Just by doing that, you do put yourself head and shoulders over most of the competition.

It’s so simple, but that’s just kind of a rule that we live by.