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David Botha’s (partner at ABMS Maintenance Services) years of experience in the facilities and maintenance environment enables him to provide solutions to keep that good feeling rolling.
October 2022 personality profile sponsored by:
Botha got his first glimpse of the air conditioning sector back in high school, when it earned him extra cash during school holidays, doing simple cleaning and servicing work at a local business. At the time, Botha noted jokingly, he thought one must be mad to make this your career of choice, just because he wasn’t exposed to the technical side of the job at first.
However, after leaving school and being uncertain of the career he wanted to pursue, he gave air conditioning another try. Before he knew it, his apprenticeship was done, and he was a qualified technician with a couple of years’ experience under the belt.
Image credit: David Botha
Through good fortune he landed a job with Anglo American (at that stage known as Anglo American Property Solutions). The diverse nature of the business exposed Botha to varied experience and technical knowledge over the next 10 years. Botha held several positions at Anglo and was promoted into the management track which laid the foundation for his career as entrepreneur.
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“In 2007 we opened our own company and if it wasn’t for the corporate experience gained over that period, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I had the opportunity to work myself up through the ranks, from a technician to management, to owning a business. Now I have been in the sector for over 30 years,” he notes.
What Botha enjoys most about his work is providing solutions to not only a client’s AC needs, but considering all aspects for improvements based on his advanced building knowledge – he admits that this is a disadvantage because he looks for faults everywhere, even at dinner with his wife at a restaurant.
Intrigued by technology, trends and new methodologies being developed and integrated into the sector, Botha likes to spend what free time he has investigating and exploring innovation – consuming various content to continuously develop his skills.
As the Gauteng chair of SARACCA, he adds that belonging to an association or body holds immense value – far more than any membership costs. “One thing that members must ensure is that they participate. This opens the doors to a wealth of information from like-minded people who are willing to share their experience, offer advice on challenges, provide insights on successful businesses, and how to continuously improve your offering to clients,” he adds.
Another important aspect for Botha is training and the importance of compliance. As he put it aptly, “standards and compliance save lives.” With the reach of social media and access to “how-to” videos, people believe they are skilled after watching a quick tutorial and then take business away from quality providers that spend time and effort to ensure compliance. More importantly, with the possible consequences involved in working with pressurised equipment, risks become a reality for unqualified people.
He applies the same principle to his view of staff training. “If you don’t have the right skills, and one doesn’t spend the time to train properly, the amount of time wasted doubles, you lose income and your client’s trust. Often, so-called ‘qualified technicians’ are not knowledgeable about legislation and the safe handling of refrigerants. You potentially have a bomb in the wrong hands.”
Looking to the future, Botha stresses the importance of going green. “Some people may be happy about global warming because it means more business for certain sectors, but the reality is that everything we do today will either destroy or safeguard our future generations, our children, and the environment. We must be more mindful of how we use resources in the HVAC sector, specifically energy and water. We have a lot of old building stock that is home to dilapidated resource-intense equipment that we can improve to provide immediate positive results. We also need to intensively promote efficiency thoughout the building sector,” he concludes.
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