INDUSTRY LEADER PROFILE
Oil in Bridgeport, Conn., where he worked as a technician, broadened into installing equipment, moved up to supervisor and in 1993 became service manager, a job he held until 1997 when he left to launch his own HVAC business. For five years until 2002 Breda worked for himself. “The grass wasn’t as green on the other side of the fence as I thought,” he said, and he then spent a couple of years in a couple of jobs, one with an HVAC company, the other an encore with Hillcrest. Toward the end of those two years, Breda recounted, “I couldn’t believe it, but I wanted to be a service manager again,” and when the opportunity came up at Sippin Energy Products in Monroe, Conn., in 2004, Breda grabbed it. Sippin has more than 8,000 accounts and some 15 technicians; as the service manager Breda oversees the selling of equipment, installations, servicing and repairs. “This is the most automated place I’ve been – and I like it that way,” Breda said, referring to the use of information tech- nology. “We’re pretty far advanced. We’re very close to being paperless. It’s possible for a technician to go through the entire day and never talk to the dispatcher.” All of the service vehicles have com- puters bolted into the space between the front seats. Sippin uses petroleum manage- ment software from Automated Wireless Environments (AWE). When a technician starts the vehicle and signs on to the com- puter, he is in effect clocking in for the start of his day. He then requests his first call, which has been loaded into the system by the dispatcher, and includes the address, a brief customer history and what the job entails. Once he arrives at the location, the tech presses a button to start the clock ticking, for accurate billing. After the job is done he enters “work performed” codes, notes parts that were used, adds any comments, and hits a “send” button to transmit the information to an employee at the office who handles dispatching and billing. “It’s on his screen in a second,” Breda said of the office employee, “so he can bill it out immediately.” (Technicians drive their vehicles home at the end of the day.)
In addition to the technicians handling such calls, there is one other technician assigned to installations of a remote tank gauging system, VisiTank, made by Original Equipment Manufacturing, Inc. The system is a boon to the delivery side of the business, because it accurately indi-
cates the fuel oil levels in customers’ tanks, Breda said. The system also helps Breda and his service techs detect a developing problem in dual-tank setups.
“When they have two oil tanks together – twin 330s or twin 275s – one tank some- times goes dry and the other tank still has
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