Building Success for 50 Years

H&G Systems
Written by Robert Hoshowsky

Over the past fifty years, H&G Systems has taken on its fair share of unique projects. This commercial heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), plumbing and service company serves northern Texas and holds licenses in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana. H&G’s works include commercial, industrial, and institutional applications. Projects range from commercial office works to hospitality, assisted living, multi-family residential, higher education, healthcare and others.
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H&G Systems has worked on a number of historic structures, but few as famous as the Dallas Municipal Building located on South Harwood in downtown Dallas. This landmark structure opened in 1914 and was extremely luxurious and ornate for its time. The building boasted a granite and blue Bedford stone exterior, an interior with wood paneling and mosaic tiling, an emergency hospital, jail cells, a shooting range and 1,100-seat auditorium among its many other amenities.

The five-story, steel-framed structure (with basement and a sub-basement) has housed the offices of the mayor, police and fire departments and other city services throughout the years. It was partially abandoned in the 1970s but is today a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark (RTHL). The Dallas Municipal Building is currently undergoing an extensive renovation and will soon see renewed life as the future home of The University of North Texas at Dallas College of Law, a new public law school.

“It’s a chilled water project, and we are doing the complete piping, duct and plumbing system renovation,” says company President Grant Yaney of H&G’s contribution. “It’s been stripped to its core, down to the bones of the building, and we are completely renovating it.” H&G’s component is expected to take about fifteen months and wrap up by the end of this year.

Yaney, also a licensed engineer, says it is a great project that, in many ways, reflects the dramatic transformation that the city’s downtown has experienced over the past twenty years. Dallas is the ninth-largest city in America and one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States, experiencing tremendous population growth. For years, H&G Systems has been working practically nonstop on several historical renovations in Dallas’s downtown, and the conversion of the former municipal building is its fifteenth older building undergoing renovation.

It is a powerful hub for industry and finance alike. As a result of the long-term expansion, many older or vacant buildings are being transformed into mixed-use in the city, often a combination of retail on the ground floor such as shops and restaurants, with hotel space or apartments above.

These and other projects keep the company busy, as it serves multiple repeat customers. “A lot of our business comes from word-of-mouth,” says Yaney. “We’ve been around fifty years, so a lot of people know us. We try to pursue the type of clients that want value. We’re not necessarily the lowest price. We can be, and are, competitive.”

The company is seeing an increase in some areas, such as healthcare. One of its recent projects is Dallas’s North Central Surgical Center, also known as the Carrell Clinic, an affiliate of United Surgical Partners International. H&G is part of a team that is transforming general office space into four operating rooms and a support area. As the project is taking place on the sixth floor of the hospital, workers must gain access to the fifth floor below to perform all the underfloor plumbing work. This requires the company to enter the occupied space every evening at six – after staff have gone home for the day – take photos of the existing space, and block everything off to prevent dust and debris from affecting other parts of the floor. After working all night, the crew inspects photos and ensures everything is placed back exactly where it was the night before, an effort appreciated by the client.

“From the standpoint of the tenants on the fifth floor, it has to be seamless, like we are not working at all,” comments Yaney of the project, expected to take about five months. “They can’t even tell we are working. That’s a big deal.”

H&G tackles complicated negotiated work, including design-build and design-assist mechanical projects. H&G’s professionalism and commitment to client satisfaction see the company keep to demanding, accelerated schedules.

As well as its highly-qualified teams of HVAC and plumbing specialists, the company has a service department, assuring customers that routine maintenance, emergency service, building/energy management and electronic monitoring will be taken care of as needed.

Yaney purchased H&G Systems from the former owners in the fall of 2015, but his involvement with the company goes back to 1997 when he was a representative for well-known HVAC manufacturer Trane. He sold H&G two chillers for a renovation project at Dallas’s Douglas Plaza. A few years later, he found himself speaking with one of the owners and expressed his interest in buying the business one day. The rest is history.

Since he took over, less than three years ago, Yaney has grown the company considerably. The business experienced forty percent growth between September 30, 2016, and September 30, 2017, and he predicts twenty-five to thirty percent growth for this year, above last year’s numbers. Anticipating overall growth in revenue of another twenty to thirty percent by 2019, Yaney also expects to increase the number of employees by fifty to sixty percent in the next year and a half. “We are definitely in a growth mode, no doubt about it,” he says.

After half a century in business, President Yaney says the company will likely celebrate its anniversary by bringing together its greatest assets, namely past and present employees and clients, all of whom are treated like family. “It takes excellent people to make it this long,” he says.

“You can’t have a company without great people, and a good economy like the one we’ve had here in North Texas for a long time helps. The brand we have built over the years is one that says we are a family-oriented company, and we enjoy what we do. We are looking for clients and opportunities who want value. They’re not necessarily looking for the cheapest possible price, but they want the best value, and they want people who are going to do things the right way, always.”

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