The History of Fahnestock

Fahnestock Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc. opened its doors for business January 4, 1982, when George Fahnestock, Paul Fahnestock, and Bob Hill joined forces to form a corporation designed to serve Wichita and the surrounding area with residential and light commercial heating and air conditioning sales and service. The company started out with two salesman, three service vehicles, and eight sheet metal installers.

However, the history of the company dates back to 1946, when E.G. "Ed" Fahnestock, Sr. combined forces with his son E.G. "Ted" Fahnestock, Jr. to form the original Fahnestock Heating and Air Conditioning. The company also started out very small but grew through the years to become the dominant residential and light commercial HVAC company in the area. During the 60's, Ted's sons George and Paul worked after school during the summers at various jobs within the business. George became a full time employee in 1969 after graduation from Wichita State University working in engineering and sales.

Throughout those early years, Ed and Ted realized the importance of public relations, quality, and being fair to employees and customers, and thus their reputation was built. Ted became very active in the local and national air conditioning contractors associations, realizing that contractors could benefit from communication with each other, both as business people and as friends. It was through these contacts and dreams of forming a national company that could employ stability to family-owned companies and provide long range opportunities for advancement, buying, fringe benefits, computerized accounting, networking, and the list goes on, that a new era began.

In 1971, two significant benchmarks occurred that were to determine the fate of the original Fahnestock and the new Fahnestock. First, Ted Fahnestock realized a dream he had been working on for ten years when he formed a new company consisting of seven heating and air conditioning contractors joining forces to form a national corporation - Airtron, Inc. Second, Ted Fahnestock passed away after battling cancer for almost the same amount of time it took to create Airtron. The very reason Airtron was formed is why Fahnestock Heating and Air Conditioning is here today. His vision was to insure that if the dealer principal became unable to work, the company would still survive.

Throughout the 70's, Fahnestock Division of Airtron continued to grow as George became sales manager, managing four sales people, not the least of whom was Paul Fahnestock whom George hired in 1975, as Paul had originally chosen to pursue other interests out of college. Airtron struggled through insolvent divisions, acquisitions, and all the dilemmas associated with a brand new company embarking on uncharted waters without their leader.

In 1979, Airtron was still a corporation of seven contractors, although not the original seven, and growing steadily and prosperously. However, Atlantic Richfield Corporation was looking for a distribution network to sell its solar collector technology, and Airtron was the perfect answer. So Atlantic Richfield bought Airtron outright, leaving the individual partners within each division without any stock or ownership. That year was the same year that George Fahnestock decided to leave the umbrella of corporate uncertainty and began fulfillment of a two-year non-competition agreement.

Two years and four days later, the new company was formed: Fahnestock Heating and Air Conditioning, Inc.