Hornbuckle Heating & Air Conditioning has been a Quad Cities staple in the HVAC community for more than 60 years. What originally began as a residential company now provides professional, custom design and construction services in the high-end residential, healthcare, industrial, institutional and commercial markets.
Today, company president Mark Hornbuckle oversees the team along with his sons, Todd and Ryan Hornbuckle. A 4th generation, Ryan’s son Conner Hornbuckle, has also recently joined the team as an engineer-in-training.
“We grew up around HVAC. Our grandfather, Bob Hornbuckle, started the business in the 1960s, then our dad took over,” Todd, vice president, said. “Ryan and I liked HVAC but wanted to explore our options and make sure we weren’t missing anything, so we went to the University of Iowa. When we got to college, the majors we found weren’t interesting enough to steer us away from HVAC, so we graduated and came back as Hornbuckle’s third generation.”
Ryan brings experience to the company as a licensed professional engineer who’s registered in eight states. This makes Hornbuckle unique by allowing them to be a turnkey design-build company.
“We can take a project from inception and turn it into a finished project without hiring an engineering firm,” Todd said. “It’s what makes us stand out. Our capability to do in-house mechanical design and engineering gives the end user the most value for their dollar.”
In addition to custom turnkey solutions, Hornbuckle is also heavily involved in architectural sheet metal — an aspect of business that’s expanded significantly in recent years. Currently, the team is working on a project for Rock Island High School involving ACM panels and has installed this long-lasting prefabricated metal siding for other customers throughout the community.
“With architectural sheet metal, the end product is very visible, which requires good craftsmanship,” Todd said. “This is important to us and we feel like we have one of the best crews in the Quad Cities.”
In addition to having a well-trained, skilled crew, Hornbuckle is proud of the culture they’ve built at their company.
“Our culture has a lot to do with what makes us unique in this industry. There’s no division between the office and field, and we have a lot of fun together outside the office, too,” Ryan said. “We work hard to make sure everyone knows they’re valued and their hard work is appreciated.”