By Elliott Brack, editor and publisher | People move to Gwinnett for all kind of reasons. For one young graduate of a technical college in Iowa back in 1985, he came to Atlanta since youth in his area of Iowa couldn’t find jobs. Those jobs were going principally to older, experienced guys, who had been laid off of jobs at factories.
One of Matthew Holtkamp’s technical college friends, who had moved from Lilburn to Iowa, came to his rescue. When this friend returned to Georgia upon graduation, he told Matthew, “Anybody can get a job down here.” And even before he graduated from Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa, Matthew had a job offer in Georgia, arriving in his 1974 Chevy Vega with about $20 in his pocket.
Matthew’s first job was with Southeast Precast Concrete Products, keeping their air conditioning operating in the underground units they made for AT&T phone equipment. Eventually, Holtkamp was employed by three major air conditioning companies, before striking out on his own.
It was at All Saints Catholic Church where he met Suzanne Kianka, and the couple have been married now for 21 years. They have two daughters, Margaret, a freshman at Brenau College studying musical theatre; and Annabelle, a junior at St, John Bosco School in Cumming. The couple live in Buford.
Suzanne is a graduate of Virginia Tech (in finance), and came to Atlanta in 1990, finding work in advertising agencies. However, when she and Matthew married in 1995, she had become a high school youth minister at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Roswell, working with teens.
The Holtkamp family: Margaret, Suzanne, Matthew and Annabelle.
In 1996 they started Holtkamp Heating and Air Conditioning, with him running the operations, and Suzanne doing the marketing and inside administration. Suzanne says they realized there was “no way to grow fast enough without me marketing the company full time.” And she been the inside person for the firm.
These days the Holtkamps have 18 people working on their staff. It was successful from the start, one reason perhaps because Matthew has the sense to limit its area of service out of his Suwanee office.
“We go as far west as Georgia 400, as far north to Oakwood, east to Loganville and south to the Northlake Mall area. You don’t want your technicians putting a lot of miles on their trucks, for that is not as profitable as servicing a limited area.”
Early on, the Holtkamps began giving back to the community. He’s focused efforts on the air conditioning program at Gwinnett Tech, where he sometimes finds employees.
They also have emphasized giving back to non-profits, especially the Aurora Theatre and the Hudgens Center for the Arts. “We’re not so much into sports as we are with the arts with our girls,” Matthew says. He adds: “I have a God-given talent to be able to work with my hands. We help the Aurora and Hudgens Art Center offset their real cost for heating and air conditioning and take the worry off their hands in maintenance that they would have to pay for themselves.”
The Holtkamp’s giving to the Hudgens Center has resulted in free admission to everyone for its galleries.
According to Ife Williams, Hudgens Center executive director, “This partnership of the Holtkamps offering free admission to our galleries is a step toward eliminating barriers, broadening our audience and strengthening community connections. We are excited to be able to open our gallery programming to everyone and grateful to the Holtkamps for making this possible.”
They’re a couple finding success in Gwinnett…..all because jobs were tough to find in Iowa in 1985.
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