Jacki Bradbury is no stranger to embarking on new ventures. She started her entrepreneurial career at age 16 with a gardening business.

As owner and founder of Bradbury Brothers Heating and Air Conditioning, Bradbury and Sons Painting and Bradbury Thornton Plumbing Services, she and her family have been in business together for more than 30 years.

“I had no intention of going into air conditioning,” Bradbury said. “I knew nothing about air conditioning, but I knew business.”

Bradbury originally got into the air conditioning business in California after she and her first husband divorced, and she had three young sons—Todd, Jason and Michael—to raise.

“I had to raise three boys, and I knew I needed a career, not a job,” Bradbury said.

Now, Todd, Jason and Michael share ownership of the business conglomerate with their mom. The family relocated to The Woodlands about five years ago, and the company has been thriving ever since.

“For small businesses, I think I’ve built a culture in my boys that we’ve been able to capture this community because we really are family-owned and family-operated,” Bradbury said.

The Bradbury businesses are associated with The Woodlands Area Chamber of Commerce, and Bradbury Brothers Heating and Air Conditioning received the Small Business of the Year award from Lone Star College-Montgomery in 2015.

Bradbury won the Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (HVACR) Woman of the Year award in 2015. She was also elected to serve as vice president of Kiwanis of The Woodlands and South Montgomery County in 2013.

“We are a part of this community,” Bradbury said. “We don’t just say we’re from The Woodlands. We are from The Woodlands. We own homes in The Woodlands. Our kids go to school in The Woodlands.”

Bradbury’s company services commercial and residential properties in Conroe, Cypress, Magnolia, Montgomery, Oak Ridge North, Pinehurst, Shenandoah, Spring, The Woodlands and Tomball. The three Bradbury businesses employ approximately 50 skilled and trained workers, and they are treated like family, Bradbury said.

“We want people who are ambitious and passionate and want to do well,” Bradbury said. “I believe that …we have taken a blue-collar industry, and we’ve offered to the people who come to work for us the opportunity to have a white collar salary. We’ve been able to show them— through training and hard work and doing a great job—that they can make the same amount as their counterparts who went to college and still have a life.”