Jay Schiedler

Though he graduated from Silverton High School in 2003, Jay Schiedler remembers it like it was yesterday.

“My mom told me I had to go to school after I graduated,” Schiedler said. “I was in auto shop and the guy from UTI (Universal Technical Institute) came and talked about their program.

“I invited him to our house to tell us more about it,” he said.

Ultimately, Schiedler said he decided on the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning program, known as HVAC, because there was a low enrollment rate and high demand for people.

“It’s better pay and cleaner work than automotive and the program is only 11 months long,” Schiedler said. “I did not want to go to school for four years.”

He headed to Phoenix, Ariz., and found he loved the program. After earning his associate’s degree, Schiedler worked in the field for about 10 years before starting his own business.

He decided to take the leap while he was working for Hewlett-Packard in Corvallis, Ore.

“I was doing their refrigeration until I got so bored that I asked my boss if it was OK to start a residential HVAC business, and he said, ‘Sure, as long as you aren’t competing with us.’”

Schiedler started Impact Heating in 2015.

“The first two years were really slow,” he said. “The hard part was physically I’m not the best installer but I’m a good service tech and salesman and it was hard to find an installer when you don’t have work every day.”

At that point, he was only installing one to three systems a week.

He hired his first employee in 2017. Now he has two.

“I pay them both salaries and they each have a van at their house, so we have three vans on the road,” Schiedler said.

“I love owning a business and being able to have control,” he said.