Since 1969: Three Owners, One Phone Number

Richard “Dick” Neuman was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1929 and lived with his grandparents in LaMoure, North Dakota until he was 14. He worked on aircraft at Northwest Airlines — and it was there he married June Howe. In the mid-1950s they moved their young family to the San Fernando Valley, where Dick went, in his family’s words, “from aircraft to HVAC.”

That lineage explains the third word on our original sign: Heating — Air Conditioning — Sheet Metal. A man who learned precision metalwork on airplanes bent his own duct. By 1966 the Neumans had settled outside Lodi — daughters Cindy and Sandy appear in News-Sentinel school and recital pages from 1966 on — and Dick set about starting something of his own.

Sources: Richard Jerome Neuman obituary, Lodi News-Sentinel, March 31–April 7, 2023; Lodi News-Sentinel school and society pages, 1966–1968.

On page 2 of the Lodi News-Sentinel of May 15, 1969, All-Air’s first ad announced a grand opening for that Friday and Saturday, May 16 & 17, at 116 N. School Street — a new display of Whirlpool heating and air conditioning equipment, free estimates, residential and commercial. The ad reads:

ALL-AIR — Heating — Air Conditioning — Sheet Metal
DICK NEUMAN, Owner
“We also handle other brand names of heating and air conditioning equipment”
116 N. School St., Lodi

That’s the whole founding story in one artifact: the founder’s name, the date, and an address you can still drive past on School Street.

You can trace the company through the paper for the next twenty years — not in press releases, but in the everyday places a small-town business shows up:

• 1970 — the number that would become our shop line, 368-4264, was ringing at the Neumans’ place in the country: it appears in News-Sentinel residential classifieds that spring. A 1980 classified selling the family’s mobile home says it plainly: “ask for June.”
• 1975 — the All-Air softball team appears in the city league standings.
• 1981 — a custom-home credits ad lists “Heating, Air Conditioning and Sheetmetal: Dick Neuman, ‘All-Air.’”
• 1982–85 — the All-Air team bowls the Delta Mixed league; the January 11, 1985 box score has Dick rolling a 676 alongside his daughter Cindy.
• August 8, 1988 — the year Dick retired, a Lodi builder took out an ad thanking “Dick Neuman, owner of All-Air Heating & Air Conditioning, for his great integrity and quality work.” We didn’t write that. A customer did — in print.

Sources: Lodi News-Sentinel classifieds, March–June 1970 and May 16, 1980; league standings June 23 & July 21, 1975; builder credits December 11 & 15, 1981; Delta Mixed league reports 1982–85 (Oct. 26, 1984; Jan. 11, 1985); tribute ad Aug. 8, 1988. Archive copies via OldNews.com or Lodi Public Library microfilm.

When Dick retired in 1988, the company stayed in the family: his daughter Sandy Neuman Schultz and her husband Rick Schultz ran All-Air for the next 23 years from 502 N. School Street. Their directory ads through the 2000s carried the line we still use — “Lic. #395746 — Since 1969.”

In a July 2004 News-Sentinel story on a Lodi heat wave, Rick — then handling about 25 service calls a day — put it the way only a lifer can:

“It’s amazing how you get some of these calls from people claiming that they’re ill or have small children. It makes me wonder how I ever survived as a kid without A/C.”

My dad worked for Canteen out of Stockton until a back injury forced him to start over. He retrained into heating and air conditioning and went to work in facility service for Jack in the Box. On the side he took care of heating and air for friends and family, and those were the calls he started taking me along on. Pretty soon I wasn’t just riding along. I was doing the work.

We decided I should learn it right, so I enrolled at Hartsog Trade School, in the old Blue Cross building on East Vine Street — the school the News-Sentinel once called “Lodi’s secret trade school.” Clarence Hartsog ran it; he’d been a heating and air contractor for thirty years before he started training his own workers. Clarence taught me. So did Mike Klemin.

The program ran four weeks at a time: electrical, air conditioning, heating, then refrigeration. Along the way we studied for the EPA refrigerant test, and I passed it with flying colors — the full Universal card. I still carry it.

Five weeks in, I was already doing preventative maintenance on the air conditioners at my apartment complex, Tokay Villa — pulling units apart and cleaning them, charging refrigerant, changing capacitors. It turned out the owner had apartments in Manteca and Antioch too, and before long I was servicing those as well.

I walked to class from my place near Hutchins and Kettleman. I worked at Orchard Supply and Radio Shack, and some nights I pulled the overnight shift at Jack in the Box until 2 a.m. Walking at 2 a.m., I’d watch the cars go by and think: why can’t I just have a car? By the end, the apartment work had replaced every other job I had — and I still finished the 4½-month program early, with honors. I had a job lined up before I graduated.

“He is doing excellent and retains what is taught him the first time he hears the material. His ability at this point to work on and understand what he is doing is among the highest in the class.”
— Hartsog Trade Schools progress letter, July 9, 1998

Out of school I went to work for local heating and air conditioning companies in Modesto and Stockton. Residential goes quiet between seasons, and my bills didn’t. So I went into commercial refrigeration: Burger King, Jack in the Box, Carrows, Coco’s, McDonald’s — walk-ins, prep tables, and the ice machines that became my specialty. It wasn’t just restaurants: Costco, Safeway, Starbucks, Jamba Juice, Wells Fargo branches, UC Davis, even Travis Air Force Base. It meant middle-of-the-night calls all over Northern California.

After a while the owners started asking for me by name — around the shops I was the fix-it guy. I ended up service manager for a shop out of Fairfield, and at manufacturer training classes the instructors would call me up front to walk a room of fifty or a hundred techs through a diagnosis.

What those years actually taught me: find the real cause. A refrigerator that keeps icing up usually isn’t a bad part — it’s a worn door gasket, a broken drawer roller, a drawer the kitchen crew keeps leaving open. Fix that, and the machine runs fine. At Carrows and Coco’s the same icing kept coming back, so I rigged a pressure control to kick the system into defrost at the right point — and then put it in at location after location.

That kind of work doesn’t keep local hours. I wanted to work where I lived, so I came back to houses. Building-science training through PG&E and BPI programs changed how I looked at them — blower doors, duct leakage, pressure. A restaurant door that fights you when you pull it is telling you about the air in the building. A house is no different, just quieter. The house, the ducts, the airflow, the equipment: one system.

In 2005 I partnered up with my dad: Tokay Mechanical, fifty-fifty. I’ve been self-employed ever since. In late 2009 I got my own contractor’s license and went out on my own — R&M Mechanical Services at first, then Central Valley Heating & Cooling. Within the year, I heard that Rick Schultz over at All-Air was thinking about retirement — and that he was looking for someone he could trust with the name.

Sources: Hartsog Trade Schools letters, 1998 · CSLB public license history.

I had no prior relationship with Rick — I just went to see him. On one of those visits, while I was looking over parts he was selling off, I ended up in a long conversation with his wife, Sandy. We connected. Only later did I find out who I’d been talking to. Sandy had been the company’s president.

Dick Neuman’s daughter told Rick I was the one who should carry All-Air forward.

After that, Rick put me in his truck. We drove customer to customer while he introduced me. Rick was as down-to-earth and honest as they come. The formal agreement in early 2011 made me the third owner: the name, the customer list, the maintenance agreements, and yes, the phone number. Central Valley came with me — I absorbed it into All-Air. Honestly, I was in awe of it at first — my whole focus was keeping the reputation Rick had built. I’m the first owner from outside the founding family, and I’ve always understood the deal that came with the keys: this company’s reputation was built over four decades before I ever answered the phone, and my job is to hand it on stronger.

The founding family are still All-Air customers today — which might be the endorsement we’re proudest of.

Some of what the years since have looked like:

• By 2016 — I’d wound down most of our commercial refrigeration accounts to go all-in on residential.
• 2017 — when the Lodi House Thrift Store’s 30-year-old rooftop unit died and replacement bids ran $7,000–$8,000, our team installed a new Lennox package unit free of charge. The News-Sentinel covered it: “A warm gesture: All-Air donates heating, air system to Lodi House Thrift Store” (Jan. 31, 2017).
• 2019 — BBB Accredited, A+ rating (profile opened 2012).
• Today — a certified Lennox dealer serving Lodi and the Central Valley from 248 Commerce Street, with a second parts-and-equipment location in Livermore, where we’ve worked since 2012, and a 4.9-star Google rating from more than 500 customers.

Dick Neuman passed away in March 2023, at 93. Every service call we run is on the number his family once answered at home.

I remember what a slow season felt like when the bills were mine. My crew is never going to feel that if I can help it — I work at keeping the schedule full through the quiet months. Some of them go back to my refrigeration days: one tech I brought into the trade fresh out of school, another who started right alongside him — and years later we all ended up at All-Air together. Ask me what I’m proudest of and it has nothing to do with revenue: the families that we have provided for — the people who work here, and the homeowners we take care of.

“Work with a real contractor who knows the business.”

— Kevin Gutierrez, Owner
Owner since 2011 — trained in Lodi, came up through commercial refrigeration, still the guy the techs FaceTime from the job. More about Kevin

We think a history page should be checkable. Every date above comes from a primary source — click where a public copy exists:

• Lodi News-Sentinel, May 15, 1969, p. 2 — the grand-opening ad, “Dick Neuman, Owner” (snippet and ad image viewable at OldNews.com)
• Lodi News-Sentinel, 1970–1988 — classifieds (Mar.–Jun. 1970; May 16, 1980), league standings (Jun. 23 & Jul. 21, 1975), builder credits (Dec. 11 & 15, 1981), Delta Mixed league (Oct. 26, 1984; Jan. 11, 1985), tribute ad (Aug. 8, 1988). Archive copies via OldNews.com or Lodi Public Library microfilm.
• “Lodi’s secret trade school,” Lodi News-Sentinel, May 18, 1994 — where the third owner trained
• Hartsog Trade Schools letters, June 8 & July 9, 1998 — enrollment March 10, 1998; graduation July 13, 1998 as a Refrigeration Service Technician (600 hours); grades all A’s; EPA Universal refrigerant card. Originals in our files.
• Lodi News-Sentinel business directory ads, Dec. 4, 2003 / Nov. 11, 2004 / Jun. 15, 2007: “Lic. #395746 — Since 1969”
• “Get out the swimsuits, lemonade — it’s going to be a hot one in Lodi,” Lodi News-Sentinel, Jul. 21, 2004 (Rick Schultz interview)
• “A warm gesture,” Lodi News-Sentinel, Jan. 31, 2017 (Lodi House donation)
• Richard Jerome Neuman obituary, Lodi News-Sentinel, Mar. 31–Apr. 7, 2023
• CSLB public license history — Tokay Mechanical (general partner, 2005); R&M Mechanical Services (2009); Central Valley Heating & Cooling (sole owner, 2010); All-Air (2011) — cslb.ca.gov Check a License
• Verify our license: CSLB #959972 — cslb.ca.gov Check a License
• Verify our rating: BBB profile — A+, Accredited since 2019

If you spot an error in our history, call us — on the same number as always.

Serving Lodi since 1969 — we’d love to earn your business too.