Today , 4th October 2024, marks another milestone in Coolair’s long history as John Otterson steps down as Managing Director.
There won’t be many people in the air conditioning industry who won’t know or have heard of John, and it would be difficult to find anyone who is more liked and respected by customers and colleagues alike.
In addition to over-performing year-on-year in his sales role, John’s key achievements at Coolair include establishing our presence in the Midlands before heading our southern base in Kent, developing design and management talent within the company and taking the reins as MD on the retirement of Coolair’s founder Nick Parker. John will now similarly pass the baton on to Mark Garstang (currently Divisional Director for the south) with whom he has worked closely for the last 30 years.
Like John, Mark first joined Coolair at the head office in Manchester and relocated along with John to become a key part of the southern sales team in 1997. Mark’s dedication and contribution to our success was rewarded with a directorship in 2012, since when he has been a key part of our management team. Mark brings an energy & enthusiasm to the MD role which his colleagues and customers are already very familiar with. Despite having a young family placing demands on his time, like the rest of the management team Mark has always committed 100% to making Coolair a great place to work and a friendly, professional company to do business with.
John says “Mark is the perfect person to take over my role, having worked with him since the Mid ‘90s hopefully some of my good habits will have rubbed off and hopefully not the bad ones! Mark is the best man to take Coolair forward, whilst I’m looking forward to staying involved but taking more of a back seat and focusing all my efforts on sales”.
Mark will now head our management team alongside Helen Sharratt, our Finance Director with 27 years’ service and Paul Evans continues to head our Manchester office. John will continue to be available to the management team which now has the perfect mix of experience to retain technical knowledge and ethos, plus a younger new generation to bring new ideas and take Coolair forward to the future.
We hope you join us in wishing both John and Mark very best wishes as they take up their new challenges.