Fifty years ago Ken Campbell founded Campbell, Inc., a basic plumbing company committed to serving customers with timely, quality workmanship and fair pricing.

Flash forward fifty years to 2018 and the company has expanded well past plumbing alone and has integrated a full range of commercial facility mechanical and environmental services. Although the company looks a lot different today than it did in 1968 the company’s value system has perpetuated with the ongoing focus on timely, quality workmanship and fair pricing.

Today, Kris Campbell is the third generation company leader having had the mantle recently passed to him by his father, Keith, who started the company down the path to being exclusively a service and maintenance only commercial mechanical company. This has proven to be the game changer that has thrust the Campbell organization into an enviable growth pattern that is as successful as it is controlled.

As Kris Campbell tells it, the company went from “being one of the pack of mechanical services contractors chasing low bid new installation work to an elite, focused company respected and sought after to perform ongoing preventive maintenance, system retrofitting and problem-solving”. Kris explains, “In mechanical contracting, everything is about doing work to plans and specifications. Low price is king. To my mind, this places customer satisfaction in second place. We are always looking to make customer satisfaction our number one priority.”

He continued, “I will continue to guide this company as a service business. A mechanical contractor with a service department on the side, by nature, works from an entirely different mindset. As a services-only company, like Campbell, we have the luxury of focusing solely on delivering the best service solutions and creating the highest customer satisfaction over the long-term.”

One of Campbell’s unique practices has entailed customers entering into preventative maintenance partnerships. Simply referred to as Guaranteed Lifetime Protection (GLP) Agreements, these long-term agreements have helped position Campbell among the area’s largest providers of guaranteed, fixed-cost contracts that assume 100 percent responsibility for the total performance and operating cost. Campbell’s maintenance programs are designed to completely protect the customer’s mechanical system investment while lowering operating costs through lower energy consumption.

According to Bob Eaton, CEO of Campbell’s flagship location in Toledo, “Simple logic would tell you that having a mechanical system breakdown repair or halt productivity is something you should absolutely avoid because it can become very expensive. But the percentage of business operators in the region who just take their chances, and quite often lose, is astounding. Those companies entering into our greenhouse partnerships can sleep better at night knowing the surprise factors has been greatly limited.”

Campbell, Inc. provides total HVAC maintenance and repair services on all types of equipment regardless of manufacturer. This includes servicing chillers, rooftop package units, boilers, digital control systems, clean room systems, process/production heating and cooling, plumbing, piping, and sheet metal for industrial, commercial, and institutional facilities.

Today, Campbell employs nearly 90 full-time technicians, engineers, administrative and customer service representatives working from strategically located facilities in Toledo, Findlay, Cleveland and Ann Arbor. “We can provide quick service within a 90-mile radius of any of these offices, so we essentially cover all of Northern Ohio and Southeast Michigan,” Kris concluded.

Campbell is a Linc Service franchise. Linc Service is a brand of ABM Franchising Group, an operating unit of ABM. ABM Franchising Group is a portfolio of franchise networks that deliver comprehensive mechanical and electrical service and preventive maintenance solutions to clients across multiple markets – from commercial office buildings, educational institutions, and municipalities to hospitals, data centers, and industrial facilities. The franchising group consists of two franchise brands: Linc Service and TEGG. The international network is comprised of more than 250 mechanical and electrical contractors located in almost twenty countries.

Linc Service® Contractors have access to ongoing technical and management training, computerized maintenance scheduling, cost control programs, and a full library of technical data on every type and make of equipment in use. Linc’s strengths includes a highly professional and proven approach to marketing, staffing, training, selling, and operations.