It was the winter of 1991 when Jeff Chase made a motion to divert Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACNA) advertising funds to U.S. troops in Desert Storm and their families at home. He had no idea that the program he started would last for 21 years.
Chase, president of Cox Engineering Co., is a member of SMACNA Boston, a New England trade association of sheet metal and air conditioning contractors. At a chapter meeting in a Boston hotel in 1991, he came up with the idea to aid military families.