Forty-four years ago, Joe Oliver, a Yale-educated engineer and young father, found himself laid off from his job at Boeing. With his family dependent on him, he turned to religion in his darkest hour.
“One of the leaders of my prayer group asked, ‘Does anybody have any problems?’ And I said, Yeah, I do — I have a wife, six sons, and no job,” he said. “I was asked to stay after the meeting to pray with them, and one of them asked, ‘Why don’t you try air conditioning?’ I thought, this must be a good word coming from God, so, I talked it over, and we started the business in February 1971.”