Since 21 March 1969
The Archway story, past the short version.
The name on the trucks has been in the same family for five generations. This page is the longer version of how it got that way, town by town and person by person.
1969: a union sheet metal worker who wanted to be his own boss.
Mel Southerland worked as a union sheet metal worker before he started his own company on 21 March 1969. The Gateway Arch across the river in St. Louis had just been finished, and Mel named his new company after it: Archway Cooling & Heating.
There was no plan then for five generations. There was a man who knew sheet metal, a shop in Belleville, and a name borrowed from the newest thing anybody in the region had just watched go up.
The Jones family took it from a startup to an institution.
Mel's stepson Bob Jones and Bob's wife Margaret joined in 1971 and turned the shop into a family owned and operated business. Their son Mike came in as an apprentice in 1978, worked his way up to Journeyman Sheet Metal Worker, and took over as operations manager when Bob retired in 2000.
Mike's sisters helped build the business alongside him. Jean Bergan ran the service department as Service Manager until she retired in 2019, and Julie Burckhardt was Office Manager for more than 35 years before she retired in June 2023.
Over the last decade, Mike's sons Marc, Alex and Brandon joined the service and new construction departments. In 2022, Mike's grandsons Cole and Maddox became the fifth generation to come into the business, working alongside the same crew their great great grandfather started in 1969.
More than 1,500 homes, and one policy that has not moved.
Over the past ten years Archway has installed ductwork and heating and cooling equipment in more than 1,500 homes across the Metro East, on top of the repair and maintenance calls that come in every week.
One thing has stayed fixed through all of that growth: our service technicians are not paid on commission, and never will be. Nobody here has a reason to write up a replacement system when a repair will do. And when you call during office hours, a person answers. No recordings, no menu of prompts, no voicemail box standing between you and the shop.
Who we answer to.
Archway holds an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, and for each of the past ten years has ranked as one of the top ten Trane Comfort Specialist dealers out of the 278 across Illinois, Missouri and Iowa. We are also a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Contractor, and every technician on the truck is NATE certified.
Archway is a member of the following organizations:
- Better Business Bureau
- NFIB
- NAHB
- NATE
- Ameren Illinois
- Energy Star
- Southern Illinois Business Association
- Greater Belleville Chamber of Commerce
Five generations later, the same family still answers the phone.
Mon to Fri 7:30am to 4:30pm, and 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM on weekends.