Company signs 'huge' deal

Southwest Florida executive Keegan Hodges had a keen interest in how the Carrier Corp. melodrama with President-elect Donald Trump played out.

Hodges says the firm he co-owns, Naples-based Best Home Services, has installed Carrier air conditioners exclusively for the last seven years. But that relationship took a beating over the summer, says Hodges, when competitors urged customers to dump Best Home Services because Carrier was going to move hundreds of jobs to Mexico. “We really started to feel it,” Hodges tells Coffee Talk.

Trump, in a way only he could, brought media publicity to the issue both before and after the election. “Trump's comments about Carrier during his campaign significantly raised awareness about Carrier's decision to move jobs to Mexico and several of our customers responded by not wanting Carrier equipment installed at their homes,” Hodges adds in a statement.

The pinch got so tight, says Hodges, Best Home Services was ready to split its purchases 50-50 between Carrier and a company that does its manufacturing stateside. Best Home Services has 125 employees and clients from Marco Island to Bradenton. It's been operating in Southwest Florida since 1980.

Hodges went as far as to go to Carrier's Indianapolis corporate headquarters, where he met with executives to talk about the situation. “Our long-term relationship was jeopardized,” says Hodges.

But Trump, with the deal to keep those jobs in the United States, saved the day for Best Home Services. “Because of what Trump did,” says Hodges, Best Home Services signed an exclusive deal with Carrier to install 4,000 domestically manufactured air conditioning units in 2017. That's up 20% over 2016, and the most units Best has agreed to handle in one year. “

We made a giant deal,” says Hodges. “It's huge.”