Founded in 1947 by Al Pekelney, Altherm is a Ridgefield, New Jersey-based rep agency entering its 78th year of representing manufacturers in the New York metropolitan area (northern half of New Jersey, five boroughs of New York City, and the Rockland, Westchester County and Long Island areas of New York) and a few lines in the entire state of New York. 

The rep firm designed and built its current 12,000-square-foot facility, including 4,500 square feet of warehouse space that Altherm moved into in 2020. The name Altherm came from being in heating with Bock Water Heaters and Utica Boilers, and it is enormously proud to still be representing these legacy lines for more than seven decades. 

The 25-person rep firm is led by President Thomas Gallagher, CPMR; Vinnie Smith; Vice President of Finance Saul Figueroa, CPMR; Miles Sotelo Hodge; and Joe Dryer. We sat down with Gallagher and Figueroa to discuss Altherm’s history, present and future, and how being members of AIM/R has enhanced their business.

Jessica Kolaitis: When did you join AIM/R and what or who motivated you to do so?

Tom Gallagher: In the early 1990s, Jay Spiegal was hired by founder Al Pekelney to start taking over day-to-day responsibilities as Al took a step back and led the agency into the future. I’d never really heard of AIM/R and, being a guy on the road, I never really paid attention to a lot of the stuff inside. 

Jay encouraged me to attend my first conference, down in Florida. He said it’s a networking event; you’ll learn about the business. It was a great conference, and I took away a lot of knowledge; I have attended many conferences since. Then he told me about the CPMR [Certified Professional Manufacturers’ Representative] program that no one from Altherm’s has ever gone through. He convinced me to take this one-week program, then I heavily encouraged Saul to do it.

Saul Figueroa: I started my CPMR class in 2021 and completed it in 2023 in Austin, Texas. I’m glad Tom encouraged me to take the class, as I learned a lot about the rep business. The classes I took over the span of three years were very engaging and informative but the class with John Vrablic was the most impactful for me. After the class, I took his business card and followed up with him several days later. John has been instrumental in helping Altherm create a tax strategy that has greatly helped our business. 

Gallagher: Let me add that I went into CPMR as a sales and marketing guy. That’s my life, still my position in the company. When I took over as president, our previous president was also the CFO. I know all about selling and marketing; I don’t know much about insurance, health plans and all that goes with running a successful agency. 

So, I hired a financial consultant who helped us hire Saul seven years ago; five years ago, he became one of our principals. I paid attention to the legal and accounting a little bit more but a lot of it was over my head. Saul went in completely differently; he went in wanting to learn more about sales and marketing but he’s our CFO. He came away with John Vrablic who has helped us with succession planning that’s saving us hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

I think CPMR is a phenomenal course for anyone who is going to manage a rep agency.

Figueroa: I agree; meeting and engaging with professionals like John V., who connected us to a tax attorney, has been instrumental for us. This is great for Altherm and how we structure our buyouts and apply for employee retention credits; it could be great for every other rep agency.

Kolaitis: What sets your agency apart from others?

Gallagher: I’m sure you’ve heard this answer before: it’s our people. We don’t own much: some computers, desks, a little inventory. We pride ourselves on having the best people in the best segments in the best positions. We’ve been doing this for more than 70 years and aren’t afraid to evolve. 

There was no better time to move a corporate office than during the height of COVID-19 in 2020. We were in an old, outdated facility we had outgrown and had a bad landlord. We said we have to evolve, we have to grow, so we moved to a new corporate facility that we designed ourselves. 

Brian Goglia: In what may be the most competitive market in the United States, what do you do to continue to succeed and grow?

Gallagher: We have a motto we try to stick to: That’s a 4-to-1 ratio. Every time we call on a wholesaler, we then have to call on a showroom, mechanical, builder, developer, etc. When looking at call reports, I better see more secondary calls than wholesaler calls. It’s how we try to stay ahead of only selling on price. It’s one thing that’s worked for us over the years and extended our relationships.

Figueroa: I would add that we’ve built solid working relationships with our wholesalers. We have also created an engaging and healthy work environment for our employees; once hired at Altherm, they don’t leave. We have several employees with more than 25 years of employment here. It shows out in the field and when you visit our customers — they know who we are; it drives our business.

Kolaitis: What have you taken away from recent AIM/R conferences and implemented at Altherm?

Gallagher: The best example is what we talked about earlier with John Vbralic. We really implemented and structured our succession planning both from organizing it and financially. I enjoy the roundtables, too; they are always enjoyable and informative. Personally, I find more value at roundtables than listening to keynotes. I’m not applying as much to everyday business from keynote speakers as I do from what I learn at roundtables.

Figueroa: I would say, as a newcomer, I like to shake hands, meet people and build relationships. At the Nashville conference, we had a really good roundtable discussion on customer relationship management, which is a hot topic at the moment. The exchange of ideas on the day to day is key.

Kolaitis: What are you most proud of?

Figueroa: We have a lot of things to be proud of. I personally am proud of our facility. We built it out ourselves. We love to walk people around and show it off. It was a big investment for a company of our size. It shows the belief in the company and its employees. We have a really nice workspace; we all love it here.

Gallagher: We have a lounge area where we can meet and collaborate and it’s a large enough space to host American Society of Interior Designers meetings, engineers and contractors. In addition, we have a conference room that holds 18 to 20 people where we meet with our staff quarterly. 

I’m also proud of our nearly eight decades in business. I was hired in our old building. I sat across from Al Pekelney’s desk when he made me an offer, shook my hand and said, “Go at it, young man.” And 30 years or so later, I sat at Al’s desk; he was out of the business, but I had an opportunity to sit at his desk. For me, it was a great feeling and came full circle from being hired as a young man to run around New York City talking to engineers — then vice president of sales and now president. Personally, that was pretty cool for me.

Kolaitis: What is one thing your company could not be successful without?

Gallagher: Definitely the people. If we don’t have the right people in place, we aren’t moving our agency forward. You can’t be afraid to continue to reinvent and reinvest in yourselves. We came out of 2024 and said we need to hire two people to help our business move forward and we’ve started that process. 

Sometimes, on Friday afternoons, a few of us will gather in the lounge area and talk. It may be me, Saul, our HR person, someone from job quotes and a couple of others; it varies. During one of these impromptu gatherings, we dreamt up an inside sales/customer service incentive plan. We put it together and presented it to them. It’s now an annual incentive; we update each year accordingly and it started because of a random Friday afternoon gathering.

Figueroa: We describe ourselves as a dysfunctional family. We encourage all our staff, regardless of title, to share their ideas. Great ideas may come from anywhere in our agency; if the idea is sound, we implement it. All our employees know they count; they aren’t a number, they are part of our dysfunctional family. 

Jessica Kolaitis, CPMR, is vice president of operations at Tim Morales and Associates. Brian Goglia is vice president of sales at Process Mechanical Systems. They both service on the AIM/R board of directors.