Donna and Mac Mattoon
If you spend any time at American Caddy Vac and B & F Power-Vac, you quickly realize that it’s a family business, and the employees who aren’t family are treated that way.
Donna Mattoon has been a central feature of both businesses from the beginning, and enjoys her current roles, auditing the businesses for regulations and processes, as well as being the driving force behind the marketing and advertising for both companies.
Donna and Mac married when they were very young, right out of high school. Mac had already been working for years, and even owned a home that he rented out. Donna also worked for wages from a very young age at a motel in her home town of Kamiah, Idaho, and even ran the motel when the owner was out of town.
When they married they followed the construction industry for a while, but quickly realized that was not the life they wanted. So, when they were still very young, they sold 40 acres they had been living on and purchased two businesses from two brothers in Grangeville, Idaho. One brother owned a Heating, Air Conditioning and Sheet Metal business, and the other brother had a Plumbing business.
Mac was a gifted technician, but he didn’t have much experience working in those trades. Donna had some bookkeeping experience, but not at the scale she needed to run these businesses. But they jumped right in, running the businesses during the day, and taking classes at night to learn their new jobs!
They were successful in the strong local economy. And while running their HVAC business, they started working with a company out of Lewiston, Idaho, called B & F Power-Vac, when they needed duct cleaning work done. Mac and Donna saw an opportunity to simplify their lives, so they sold their HVAC company and purchased B & F in 1988.
At that time, the only cleaning units available were the old Pringle cleaners that had been designed in the 1950’s. The Pringles were high maintenance. At first they were simply working cleaning jobs during the day and maintaining the trucks at night. Eventually, they figured the best way to keep two crews working was to have three trucks. Two were working while the third was in maintenance.
In the early 90’s Mac and Donna got acquainted with some cleaners in Canada who were experimenting and designing new Power Vac trucks with innovation in mind. The Mattoons saved their money, and in 1996 purchased their first Caddy Vac for B & F Power-Vac. Over time, the two families became friends and partners, and that led to the formation of American Caddy Vac in 1998.
The two companies worked together to create new trucks designed to be low maintenance and reliable. The industry responded and today Mac and Donna lead American Caddy Vac in manufacturing the best, most powerful, most reliable unit on the market.
Over the years, Donna has been a big supporter of NADCA (the National Air Duct Cleaners Association) because of a real need for education in the industry. Over the years, there have been lots of fly by night outfits that came into towns pretending to offer “furnace cleaning” for $50 0r $75, leaving their customers not only with a mess, but often with real damage to their air systems. Early on, Donna produced flyers warning of the danger of those types of operators, and was an early innovator in using the internet to distribute that information as well. What Donna did locally, she saw NADCA doing world-wide, so the Mattoons have been big supporters of those efforts. The Mattoons also encourage all their American Caddy Vac customers to become NADCA members.
In her free time, Donna loves to create cement statuary. She creates her own molds, pours them, allows them to set up and then paints them. She got into the cement statuary because when they moved to their current home on the hillside overlooking Lewiston, they encountered tremendous winds that blew away anything that wasn’t tied down. Concrete is heavy and it doesn’t blow away. A perfect fit! All her kids and many of her friends now display Donna’s artwork.
She loves spending time with family and treats the American Caddy Vac and B & F Power-Vac employees like they are family too. In fact, their American Caddy Vac customers who come to visit or pick up a new truck often go away feeling like they are part of family as well.
