Check Out Kurtis Heck’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Kurtis Heck.

Hi Kurtis, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
We moved to East Nashville in 2012 from a small town on the Central Coast of California, near where we grew up. My brother in law had lived in Nashville for a few years and we visited him in May of 2012. When we went home, my wife lost her job so we decided Nashville was fun and we packed up and left and drove out to TN within a month. Halfway across the USA we realized we were nuts, but it was too late to go back since we had rented out our house and sold most of our stuff. We arrived to my brother in law’s house with no jobs and no place to live. We found jobs quickly, but my first one was a nightmare and didn’t last long. I was ready to go back to CA. One of us found a job in a Craigslist post for a powder coating job and I went for the interview. It was a company called Fancy Vents and I wasn’t into the job at all, but I needed work after a couple weeks without any. I had painted cars and been in the auto industry for several years so powder coating was easy, but I was sure that I needed to be a car painter since that had been my career trajectory for the past few years. I got along with the owner Earl so it worked for now. After a few months of working there he got diagnosed with cancer and asked me and the other employee to stay at least until his treatment was done to help things running. He treated us well and we had a good relationship. I learned how to weld and helped keep the shop going while he was out a lot getting treatments. Unfortunately, he passed in 2014. After that we were approached about buying the business from his wife. Long hard story short, we finally purchased it in November of 2016, over two years after Earl died.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Running a small business is hard. For us it has been. We jumped in feet first to the business part of it and have had to figure it out along the way. We always say it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of Faith. Things were going well until 2020, thankfully we made it through that when other businesses didn’t. Then we were dealing with personal issues while also running a business and raising a child. After 2020 it felt different in Nashville so we decided to move south to Lawrenceburg in 2021. We moved our business down to our property in 2022 and it was like we started a new business all over again. It’s been a challenge for people to find us online since we can’t compete with big marketing budgets and algorithms. People think we shut down after we moved locations. We have survived the past few years and the hard economic times. Some days we feel like we aren’t going to make it through and pay the bills, but we do. God provides. It’s a whole lot of hard work and a lot more Faith.

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
I have always been creative. I drew and painted and played music. I was in bands. I worked with my hands since school was never my focus or easy for me. My trades and hobbies had always been with my hands and creative outlets. I grew up in a Christian household as a youth pastor’s kid, but that didn’t make it easy for me. My life the past few years has been focused on my family and my Faith. I most proud of my life now with my wife and three girls and my relationship with Jesus.

Any big plans?
I hope that our business continues to support our family. I hope that we continue to branch out into powder coating and welding jobs. I just want to support my family and focus on our home and life together. We have a good balance of home life right now while our girls are young and we love that. At the end of the day, if we lost it all that would be fine too since we can’t take it with us and our salvation is all that matters in the end. We try to teach our girls to be good people who love The Lord and do good for others.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fancyvents.com
• Instagram: @fancy_vents
• Facebook: @FancyVents
• LinkedIn: Fancy Vents
• Youtube: Fancy Vents
• Yelp: Fancy Vents