A commercial refrigeration CEO decides where the company grows, which chain accounts it keeps, and where capital goes, from service trucks to a new branch. They also hold the bank, surety and insurance relationships that let the company bid larger store remodels.
By the HireBus team · Updated · Pay data: BLS, May 2025
Median pay, HVAC and plumbing contractors · BLS, May 2025
Refrigeration Install & Service - Chief Executive Officer
Company Name:
[INSERT COMPANY NAME HERE]
Department:
Executive
Reports to:
Owners or board of directors
Location:
[INSERT LOCATION HERE]
1. Position Summary
You'll lead a commercial refrigeration contractor that grocery stores, restaurants and cold storage sites count on when a box goes down. You set the growth plan, decide where capital goes, and own the relationships with the largest chain accounts and with the banks, sureties and insurers behind the business.
2. Essential Duties and Responsibilities
Set the multi-year plan for the mix of service agreements, repair work and installs, and choose the next branch or market to enter.
Decide where capital goes: service trucks, install crews, test and recovery equipment, a new branch, or buying another contractor.
Own the relationships with the largest grocery chain, restaurant group and cold storage accounts, including contract renewals and rate changes.
Hire, coach and hold accountable the COO, CFO and Marketing Manager.
Keep banking, bonding and insurance relationships strong enough to bid larger install and remodel projects.
Decide which customers, service lines and markets to grow or drop, using margin by customer and job type from the CFO.
Set the company's line on refrigerant handling and safety, and back it when a customer pushes for a shortcut.
3. Key Tasks / Daily Activities
Review the weekly numbers: revenue by service, agreements and installs, install backlog, cash, and open emergency calls.
Meet with the COO and CFO on staffing, margins and the install schedule for the coming months.
Call or visit key account contacts, such as a chain's facilities director, to hear about problems well before renewal time.
Review large install bids and multi-site agreement proposals before they go out.
Talk with lenders, insurance brokers, equipment manufacturers and possible acquisition targets.
4. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Revenue growth: [your target].
Net profit: [your target].
Service agreement revenue renewed: [your target].
Revenue kept from top accounts year over year: [your target].
Field technician retention: [your target].
5. Required Qualifications and Skills
[10+] years of leadership in commercial refrigeration, HVAC, mechanical contracting or another field service business.
A track record of running a company or division with full profit and loss responsibility.
Experience winning and keeping multi-site commercial accounts, such as grocery chains or restaurant groups.
Skill reading financial statements, job cost reports and backlog reports, and acting on them.
Experience working with banks, sureties and insurance carriers.
6. Preferred Experience
A hands-on background as a refrigeration technician, project manager or service manager.
Experience opening a branch or buying and folding in another contractor.
Relationships with grocery, foodservice or cold storage decision makers in [your region].
Working knowledge of the refrigerant phase-down and what it means for customers replacing equipment.
7. Physical Requirements
Office work with regular computer and phone use.
Walk occupied stores, machine rooms and active job sites on visits.
With or without reasonable accommodation.
8. Work Environment and Schedule
Office-based at [headquarters], with regular visits to branches, customer stores and install sites.
Travel to customer headquarters, trade events and other branches: [how often].
Evening and weekend calls when a major account has a system failure or a large install is cutting over.
9. Compensation and Benefits
Pay: [range and hourly or salary basis].
Additional pay: [overtime, bonus or incentive terms, or none].
Benefits: [health, dental, vision, retirement, paid time off, and when they start].
10. Company Culture and Overview
[Two or three sentences on what your company does, the area you serve, and the support a new chief executive officer gets in the first 90 days.]
11. How to Apply
[Apply link or email]. Our process: [phone interview, in-person interview, and next steps]. Contact [hiring contact] if you need an accommodation during the application process.
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What changes for a CEO in commercial refrigeration
Here the big calls turn on refrigerant rules, a short list of chain customers, and what a failed case costs a store.
The phasedown shapes the install market
Under the AIM Act, EPA is cutting HFC production and consumption in steps, to a small fraction of baseline levels by 2036. Companies must spend allowances to make or import bulk HFCs. Expect chains to ask what their next systems should run on. Decide early how much training, tooling and crew time you'll put behind CO2 and other lower-GWP systems. Source: U.S. EPA: HFC allowances and the phasedown schedule.
Set the refrigerant line before a customer tests it
Federal rules say no one who services or scraps a refrigeration system may knowingly vent the refrigerant. Sooner or later a store manager will ask a tech to cut out an old unit without recovering the charge, just to save an hour. Put in writing that the tech can say no, and that the company will stand behind them with the account. Source: eCFR: 40 CFR 82.154, prohibitions including the refrigerant venting ban.
A new state can mean a new license file
Check contractor rules before you sign a branch lease. Iowa, for example, makes every plumbing and mechanical contractor get a state board license, and that includes refrigeration. They must also register with the state's licensing office. The application asks for proof of liability insurance, a surety bond and a master of record. Rules vary by state, so licensing belongs on the expansion checklist. Source: Iowa DIAL: Plumbing and mechanical contractor license.
A few chains can become most of the book
When you grow by winning a grocery or restaurant chain's stores one region at a time, one facilities director's budget call can turn into a big slice of revenue. Track revenue and margin by account, know when each master agreement comes up for rebid, and keep enough mid-size customers that losing one chain doesn't mean layoffs.
Decide who pays when product is lost
When a freezer fails, the store's real loss is the food, and it can dwarf the repair bill. Sit down with your lawyer and insurance broker. Decide what your agreements say about lost product, what coverage you carry, and who may promise a store anything after an outage.
How much commercial refrigeration CEOs make
The closest BLS group for commercial refrigeration CEOs is chief executives. Chief executives who work for plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors earned a median of $174,130 a year ($83.72 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s below the $213,990 median for chief executives in all industries. About 760 of the 204,350 chief executives in that survey work for HVAC and plumbing contractors.
Pay is mostly salary, with an annual bonus that moves with profit. Owners bringing in an outside CEO sometimes add equity or a share of growth.
HVAC and plumbing contractors
$174,130$174,130 median Middle half $93,740–$271,790 10th–90th $70,780–$421,320
All industries
$213,990$213,990 median Middle half $129,540–$356,200 10th–90th $75,700–$507,730
10th–90th percentileMiddle halfMedianAnnual pay, May 2025. Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics.
Annual pay by percentile
Group
10th
25th
Median
75th
90th
HVAC and plumbing contractors
$70,780
$93,740
$174,130
$271,790
$421,320
All industries
$75,700
$129,540
$213,990
$356,200
$507,730
BLS doesn’t publish pay for refrigeration contractors on their own. These figures cover plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors, which include them. Post a real range for your market in the ad.
Skills to hire for, and what you can teach
Hire for these
Has answered for profit and loss at a company doing both service and installs
Reads a backlog report and a work-in-progress schedule and spots the job going wrong
Has kept multi-site accounts through a rebid
Explains refrigerant rules plainly to a chain's facilities team
Builds a leadership team and holds it to written goals
Teach these on the job
Your chain accounts' contract terms and history
CO2 and other lower-GWP systems at a business level
Bonding and surety terms at your size
Reports from your accounting and dispatch systems
Grocery and foodservice contacts in a new market
The CEO reads the accounting system's statements, the field service software's dashboards for agreements and emergency calls, and the CFO's backlog and margin-by-account reports. Most of the job runs on those reports, the phone and site visits, so say in the ad which systems the leadership team already uses.
Commercial refrigeration CEO interview questions
Two of the 6 questions we'd ask, and what a strong answer sounds like. Ask every candidate the same questions, and rate each answer on your own before you compare notes.
Situational · Backing refrigerant standards
A large grocery chain's facilities director wants your technicians to keep topping off leaking cases instead of repairing the leaks, to save money. What do you do?
A strong answer: Backs the company's refrigerant rules, explains the legal and cost risks plainly, offers a leak reduction plan that saves money over time, and accepts losing work over it.
Behavioral · Holding leaders accountable
Tell me about a time a service or branch manager you hired let on-call coverage or response times slip.
A strong answer: Showed them the response-time data, set clear expectations and a deadline, gave honest feedback and support, then acted, handled the outcome with respect, and covered the gap for customers.
None of the template's targets come filled in. Pick each one from last year's results and your growth plan, and revisit them with the board or owners once a year.
Revenue growth
Line up revenue against the prior year for repair calls, agreements and installs, so one large remodel can't hide a shrinking service book.
Net profit
Use reviewed or audited year-end statements, with owner pay set at a market rate, so the figure shows how the company runs apart from the owner's salary choices.
Service agreement revenue renewed
Take the annual value of agreements that came up for renewal and the value that renewed, and note which losses came from price and which from service problems.
Revenue kept from top accounts year over year
List the largest accounts by last year's revenue and compare this year's spend site by site, so a closed store reads differently from a lost contract.
Field technician retention
Of the technicians on payroll in January, count how many remain in December, and find out why each one who left chose to go.
Career path
Service managerLearns agreement pricing, after-hours staffing and what chain accounts expect.
General managerAnswers for one branch's results, with service, installs and the office under one roof.
What should a refrigeration CEO do when a chain rebids its stores?
Start well before the request for proposal lands. Pull the account's history store by store: response times, repeat calls, refrigerant added and invoice disputes. Meet the facilities director to hear what they would change. Then decide whether to bid every region or only the stores your branches can reach inside the agreement's response times. Losing a region you can't serve well costs less than winning it.
How much does a commercial refrigeration CEO make?
Chief executives who work for plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors earned a median of $174,130 a year ($83.72 an hour) in May 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The middle half earned between $93,740 and $271,790 a year. Pay also depends on your local market, experience and bonus terms.
How should a refrigeration CEO size up a contractor to buy?
Look past the revenue line. Ask for each agreement's terms and renewal date. Get revenue by customer, how many techs there are and how long they've stayed, and ticket records for refrigerant added and leaks fixed. Visit a few of the seller's biggest stores with their service manager. A seller whose largest customer can cancel on short notice is selling less than the revenue suggests.
Who should own the relationship with a chain's facilities director?
Split it by level. The general manager or service manager handles open tickets, weekly calls and invoices. The CEO meets the facilities director, and that person's boss, a few times a year about remodel plans, new stores, refrigerant choices and price. The account hears one voice on daily work and still has a direct line to someone who can commit the company.
Why does the CEO template list walking stores and machine rooms?
Because visits are part of keeping accounts. The line covers tasks such as walking a store's sales floor and back room with a facilities manager, looking over a rack in a machine room, and touring an install in progress. Ship the line unchanged, accommodation note included.
