|
|
About O'BrienRather than bore you with the normal and mundane company profile sheet, I decided to include here a slightly modified version of a story that first ran in the "HVAC NOW" industry trade paper in August of 1996. I think it will give you a good idea of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going.
Roger A.O'Brien /President "What's Lemons Got to do with It ?"Roger O'Brien started O'Brien Global Products in 1994 with the birth of "The Refrigerant Management Book". At that time he was an air conditioning, refrigeration, service and installation contractor. He was sitting at his desk late one night working on the computer entering invoices for the day, complaining to his wife about the EPA. They dictated that we had to recover refrigerant. "How we were supposed to recycle, and reclaim it, " he grumbled, "and how are we were supposed to track refrigerants from the time we buy it, till we finally sell or disposed of it. They also have a great 'Violation Letter' requesting all sorts of information," O'Brien Quipped, " but that they never provided us with the forms required to track all this. History was in the making when his wife Rita says "Honey, why don't you make the forms? You have those you made up for your own use." Bear in mind this is just before summertime in Texas when he gets very, very busy. "Thanks sweetheart! "O'Brien groaned. "I was looking for a little something extra to work on just before I go to bed." Well after thinking about it he decided she probably had a pretty good idea, so for the next two months after he got done with all the work he did during the day, Roger worked till just before going to bed on revising the forms he already had, and making up new ones that he thought would be useful. Roger finished this smack dab in the middle of summer. Now he needed some copies. So between the printers, hole punching and everything else, it took him one week to hand do ten books. He then rushed off a copy of the completed book to the copyright office to establish his copyright. The next step was to call a sales rep he knew and ask him if he thought there might be some interest in this kind of book. The sales rep. said it sounded real interesting and he would like to look at the book first. So a time to meet a couple of weeks later was set up. When the sales rep. arrived and they had talked awhile the sales rep. said he would like to take some samples and show them around to some of his wholesale contacts to see what they thought. O'Brien gave him all of the original ten he had left so he could use them as samples, except for a couple that he kept for office copies. The next day the sales rep. calls O'Brien all excited and gives him an order for 100 books! Only a couple of small problems are present at this point. One: Roger has absolutely no books, and no way to make them quickly. Two: he's in the air conditioning, refrigeration service business, its the middle of summer, 100 degrees, and he is as busy as a goose in a swarm of grasshoppers. Three: Rita his wife who answers the phone, does a lot of the paperwork during the day, and schedules most of his service calls just went out of state to visit with her sick mom. Four: Roger's five year old son (really a Tasmanian devil in midget form) just got out of school for the summer. Things are not really stacked in favor of starting a new company just now. So Roger did what any one would do in his shoes, he called on his mom who was retired and could help him out of a jam. Well after allot of hard work they got thru the first orders, and made it till Rogers wife got back to help out. He used all the money he made in the air conditioning business (well we all know that couldn't be much!) to buy materials and kept on going. Roger also borrowed more money to buy a digital printer and really got off and running into the printing business. Things got so busy that Roger ended up selling the air conditioning refrigeration business he had built up for fifteen years to his brother Douglas so he could devote full time to his new company called "O'Brien Global Products, Inc." O'Brien started to add sales reps to expand the territory he covered, and bought more machinery like a three hole drill press to punch the holes in the paper, a collator to sort paper, and other production machinery. "Well hit me with a hammer," O'Brien thought "I'm starting to think I may be on to something here." As of this printing O'Brien Global Products, Inc. has sold thirty thousand plus of their publication 'The Refrigerant Management Book". It is currently in its third edition. The hottest product they currently sell is there "QuickLoads Pro" foe Windows software. It is a residential and light commercial air conditioning and heating load calculation program with automatic duct sizing, cooling costs, heating costs, payback analysis, and bid in one package. The 6 programs in one sell for a fraction of what other software vendors sell just one of the modules for, much less all 6 combined programs. The two old adages that come to mind when he looks back on all this" O'Brien confides" are; " When life gives you lemons, make lemonade " and " Find a need and fill it." I believe Mr. O'Brien discovered the secret to success.
For More Information Contact: |
|
Send mail to
webmaster@obrienglobal.com with questions or comments about
this web site.
|
