JAX Refrigeration Inc.

In just five years, Jacksonville-based JAX Refrigeration Inc. has established itself as a leading industrial refrigeration and mechanical services contractor, rapidly expanding through diverse divisions and a leading team of 70-plus employees. Founded in 2010, JAX has managed to not only survive, but grow through one of the worst recessions in history.

JAX started from scratch, with no customer list – just a few previous customers that worked with founders Mark Lowery, PE, president of JAX and Ed Trotzke, PE, senior vice president.

“We started the company in the middle of the recession,” recounts Lowery. “When we started, Ed was the only other employee at the time. We’ve been fortunate to find the right people to add to our arsenal. In 2012, things started to pick up and in the last three years business has been really good.”

Without any advertising, just the trusted brands people recognize and a mascot named Fridgie, JAX’s business began to mount in 2010. “Mark is very entrepreneurial in nature and his business strategies helped us start in a slow economy,” explains Gregory Camp, vice president of business development for JAX. “We started lean and only took on viable projects. The first two years were a struggle – as with any startup – but we’ve now hit very progressive growth by doing so in a sustainable manner.”

JAX has a diverse in-house skill set and this versatility has contributed to the company’s standing in multiple markets. “The experience of our personnel, including numerous professional engineers, project managers and HVAC/refrigeration technicians, is anything but startup level,” says Camp, who’s been in the mechanical industry for 15 years. “We’ve all worked for larger companies and have merged our years of experience.”

Before long, JAX went from relatively low volume with a few reliable customers to being licensed in more than 45 U.S. states and other foreign territories, with contractors calling on its expertise. “Now we have contractors coming to us for mechanical work and we determine our work load,” says Camp. “In fact, we were recently named one of Jacksonville’s 50 fastest-growing companies in the private sector.”

Working together as one

Today, JAX encompasses several divisions. “Each company has been added to our arsenal in chronological order: JAX Mechanical, Mechanical Engineering and Solutions [MEAS] and JAXCamp Industrial,” says Lowery. “Each division has been created to exploit synergies and create profit centers for different niche businesses.”

“We were already providing these services, but many people we would call would forget and explain that they did not consider us for projects because there was no refrigeration work,” continues Lowery. “We wanted to be sure they saw this as a core competency.”

MEAS, the company’s professional engineering group, formed out of JAX’s engineering-driven solutions. “We always wanted to provide the engineering solution first, then look at lifecycle cost and full value,” says Lowery. “We want to be not only one solution, but the best solution. When Ekle Small, PE, agreed to join us, we wanted to create a way for Ekle to lead his own division. Thus, MEAS was branded.”

JAXCamp Industrial is led by Camp and his wife Paula Camp. “We both had previous experience in sales and marketing for design-build services and industrial products, especially related to the food industry,” says Camp. JAXCamp Industrial is a leader in food processing systems, food safety and environmental solutions, battery handling technology and equipment sourcing for industrial customers.

JAX Refrigeration specializes in engineering, design, installation and maintenance of industrial and commercial refrigeration and mechanical systems. JAX Mechanical is one of the most successful HVAC contractors in Jacksonville, but the company offers services all throughout North America, Canada, Puerto Rico and surrounding islands.

Room to grow

To support this rapid expansion, JAX and its diverse divisions needed room to grow. “We were fortunate to purchase the last piece of land available on A1A in Jacksonville Beach and place our 7,000-square-foot headquarters,” says Lowery. “This expansion will save money for rent and provide an asset for the company.”

In addition, JAX has expanded its fabrication shop. “We expanded our fab shop from 3,200 square feet to nearly 6,000 square feet,” notes Lowery. “We are able to prefabricate many of our pipe and skid assemblies. In fact, we are making new desks, handrails, and other architectural metal items for the new office in our fab shop.”

JAX Mechanical and JAX Refrigeration support a range of customers across the food and beverage, process industries, cold storage and blast freezing, pharmaceutical, chemical and petrochemical markets. “Our scope from a mechanical standpoint includes utility piping, plumbing and HVAC duct work, mostly in the industrial sector and a bit of commercial,” says Camp. “Within this, as a leading design-build firm, JAX Refrigeration is able to draw from all divisional resources to offer leading refrigeration contracting.”

Together the various JAX divisions have delivered many unique projects, including a specialized polymer piping project in which JAX received an ABC Excellence in Construction Eagle Award utilizing products from Aquatherm, a high-performance pressure pipe manufacturer. “We installed this polymer piping rather than traditional steel pipe for underground utilities,” says Camp. “This was a dynamic project due to unique challenges and fast execution.”

Lowery says JAX now runs the gamut in providing a better overall solution for customers. “We work with many industrial clients,” he says. “We’re able to marry the concepts of low and high temp refrigeration, commercial refrigeration and industrial ventilation.”

“We take plants where an HVAC contractor was trying to keep an area cool and we go in and use refrigeration-type coils and HVAC water systems to cross-reference our capabilities,” continues Lowery. “Our focus is on being more than a run-of-the-mill installer; we also provide engineering services as a true design-builder.”

In the end, all of this amounts to a better solution for customers. “Along the way, we have people who are skilled at estimating and we’re able to see what the cost versus the total lifecycle value is,” says Lowery.

Cultivating a positive environment

With 70-plus employees and expanding across all divisions, a new corporate office and a new state-of-the-art fabrication shop, JAX has grown by leaps and bounds, but Camp says it’s about finding the right balance. “We’re not taking on more than we need,” he says. “We listen to our customers and this is why we have diversified. We’re performing a large amount of scope for most projects we’re executing as the single source for our customers project, rather than multiple POs and vendors, but we’re not venturing too far out of our comfort zone by staying within our engineering wheelhouse.”

Camp says JAX wouldn’t be where it is today without its dynamic, dedicated team. “We have a large number of professional engineers on staff and an expert project management team,” he says. “We’re focused on helping our employees grow personally, as well as professionally. We do lots of on-site training and encourage continuous education. This has created a positive culture and high employee retention at JAX.”

“We’re big on helping our employees succeed,” adds Lowery. “We have an outside consultant available to help them advance personally and professionally, even if their goals, although very rare cases, ultimately take them to other places outside of JAX.”

Community connections

Through its charitable foundation, JAXCares, Lowery says the company steps out of its usual work mode to give back to the community whenever possible. “It’s important to us to create an environment where we care about what we’re doing,” says Lowery.

JAX works with organizations such as Dreams Come True, the Wounded Warrior Project and Do it for the Love. “There is a bigger purpose for all of us,” says Lowery. “We enjoy being part of something bigger than ourselves – whether that’s giving out stuffed animals to kids in the hospital or helping to raise money for a family with a sick loved one. Life is too short, so enjoy your work and payback.”

Lowery says if there’s one word he can use to summarize the company, it’s responsible. “We have a sense of duty and responsibility to the global community, local community, clients, customers and JAX family,” he says. “Overall, our employees have a great sense of pride and it shows in the work they do. This is why our retention rate with customers is so high. We value hard work, but we also encourage family time and try to treat our business as one big family; one that can make money, but also pay it forward to others.”

By looking to bring more value to the refrigeration and mechanical markets, and the communities it serves, JAX Refrigeration and the JAX family of companies grew from startups to industry leaders in record time.