I started in March of 1983 as a service technician, hired by John Annarelli Sr. I had a friend working at Medford Wellington at the time and he got me the interview with John Sr. I brought with me 11 years of experience from previous field jobs, having been a shop foreman at a refrigeration HVAC company, a mechanic at a separate company, and even ran my own business for 3 years.
Getting to work with the Annarelli family was a completely different experience than the previous places I worked at. John Sr. was someone that I really looked up to, and he treated me with respect. Two weeks after I started working at Medford Wellington, I became very sick. I was out for about 3 weeks, but because of the respect I received from John Sr., I never lost a day’s pay.
It speaks a lot about the type of man John Sr. was. He was a hard business guy who had a solid work ethic, but he had a lot of respect for his people. John would give you the shirt off his back and treat you like family. He knew how to balance running a good business and socializing with people.
So in the beginning of my time at Medford Wellington, I was a service tech. After the first three years, John asked me to come into the office as a service manager, and also work as a dispatcher. We had about 15 mechanics at the time. On top of all that, I was also a salesperson at the same time, doing all the quotes. It was a tasking job, and I was making a lot of decisions for the company, but that’s what John Sr. allowed me to do. Obviously John Sr. would intercede when needed and I would always ask for his advice, but I basically made most of the decisions as far as what we were doing.
John Sr. and I were very close, as he was my mentor. We would talk everyday. He groomed me into the position that I have today, so I have a lot of respect for him and his family.
Because of the relationship I had with John Sr., he trusted me with his company. I was running the service department, while John Jr. was running the electrical department. I basically coordinated most of the stuff for the service department since I spoke with them everyday, dispatched the technicians to the right jobs. I was the service manager for over 20 years. I worked long hours and days sometimes, since service managing was a 365 day, 24/7 hour type of job. It was a pretty daunting position to hold. And while I did become a bit burnt out at one point, I always had great staff to fall back upon, between our dispatchers and other office staff.
In the early 2000’s, we built a new office building in Medford, MA. (Fun fact: All of us who were working for Medford Wellington at the time signed a beam that was going into the building as it was being built.) At that time, we brought on more dispatchers and coordinators, so my role as a dispatcher was given to someone else. Our current manager of the dispatching department, Renee, came in at the time and took over the service coordinating, and I was made the Senior Vice President, which is what my current title is. My main responsibility is selling and doing a lot of the refrigeration jobs.
There are a lot of good people working here at Medford Wellington, loyal people who have been here over 20, 30, and even 40 years. That has given the company a boost, to make it into what it is today, expanding with offices in Billerica and Rocky Hill, CT. I see this company going even further, as far as expanding and becoming an even larger company. It’ll continue on even when I’m no longer here.
For those wanting to join Medford Wellington either now or in the future, the key to success at Medford Wellington is to do your job and give it 100%. And even though any job is going to have it’s ups and downs, you have to fight through them and take the good with the bad. If you do your job, and you give it
110%, you’re bound to go somewhere. I wouldn’t have been here for 40 years if I didn’t think the company was good. The loyalty and respect that I’ve been shown by the Annarelli family and the loyalty/respect I have for John Sr. and his family is going to stay with me for the rest of my life.