Rooted in Woodbine, Serving Central Kansas: KVK Celebrates 30 Years
Updated: 4 days ago
Sometimes, the reach of a small-town business is easiest to see on the road.
Robin Volkman, office manager at KVK Heating and Air Conditioning, recalled a friend messaging her after passing six or seven KVK trucks during a drive.
Seeing those vehicles out in the community is a source of pride for Robin—and a reminder of how far the business has come.
Celebrating 30 years since its founding in April 1996, Woodbine-based KVK has nearly tripled its employee base and built a customer database of approximately 4,000. Its service area reaches across Central Kansas, including Dickinson, Marion, Saline, Morris, Geary, Ottawa and Riley counties.
Behind that growth is a leadership team whose working relationship has helped shape the company: President Darrin Volkman, Vice President Zach Krause and Office Manager Robin Volkman.
For them, the anniversary comes back to the people who made those years possible.
A business that brought them home
The business began in April 1996. Darrin became part owner in April 2000, followed by Zach later that year. Robin joined the team in 2001. In 2011, the original owner stepped away and sold all of his remaining shares to Darrin.
For Darrin and Robin, the business also created a path home.
The couple had spent about a decade away, attending college and working in the Manhattan area while living in Wamego. Robin had attended school in Hope; Darrin had attended Chapman. Returning meant being close to their families and the communities where they grew up.
“It meant a lot to us to be able to come back and live here, because this is where we grew up,” Robin said.
Darrin was recruited to join the business. As the workload grew, an opportunity opened for Robin to join the office staff, too.
What had been a hope for their family became a lasting homecoming. The business initially operated from a rural location outside Woodbine before moving into its current location in February 2017. In 2025, KVK added 1,400 square feet of warehouse space to the existing building.
Moving the business into Woodbine fulfilled a major goal for Darrin. Reflecting on that progress and the company’s 30-year milestone, he put it simply: “I’ve accomplished a goal in my life.”
Three roles, one team
Ask what makes the operation work, and the conversation quickly turns to the relationship among Darrin, Robin and Zach.
“Robin is like the hub,” Zach said. “Robin takes care of day-to-day operations and makes sure that everything in this building is flowing correctly.”
Each has distinct responsibilities, from service and installation to office operations and payroll. They know where their own work begins, where someone else’s expertise is needed and when to step in to help.
“We all have weaknesses, and we know those weaknesses,” Robin said. “But we don’t hone in on those. We just, we pull from each other to make sure that we pick each other up when we need to.”
Darrin credits KVK’s success to the leadership he shares with his wife, Robin, and his business partner, Zach, along with the employees who keep the work moving. He describes Zach as a close friend as well as a business partner, with mutual respect at the heart of their working relationship.
Darrin is especially proud of the team they have built and the loyalty of their customers. He has hired employees out of high school and technical school and personally trained all of KVK’s current installers.
“They are my family,” Darrin said of his employees.
For him, that means working alongside them and being willing to take on the same difficult jobs he asks them to do. The family atmosphere is reflected in employees who have stayed with KVK for nearly 15 years. Together, the team brings 154 combined years of service.
Zach sees a direct connection between the support employees receive at work and the service they provide when they leave the shop.
“Because they are respected and taken care of, they take that down the road with them,” he said.
From county maps to digital dispatching
The workday looked different when Zach was learning the trade.
Before smartphones and digital dispatching, technicians relied on county maps to find rural homes. Sometimes, finishing a service call meant asking to borrow the customer’s telephone so they could call the office and check for their next assignment.
“You focused on customer interaction and doing your job,” Zach said.
The equipment and installation work have changed, too. In the early days, many projects involved bringing central cooling into a home for the first time. Some required installing ductwork where none had existed.
Today, replacement jobs often begin with that infrastructure already in place. Digital dispatching helps technicians find their destinations and review customer histories, previous repairs and equipment notes.
KVK’s services include heating and cooling installations, repairs, preventive maintenance, ductwork and air purification. As a certified York dealer, the company installs York equipment and also services other brands.
Its work extends beyond homes to commercial accounts, servicing or maintaining banks, courthouses, larger commercial buildings and school districts. Those accounts take the team to communities including Great Bend, St. John, Lyons, Manhattan, Hutchinson and Mankato.
But adopting new tools has not meant changing every part of the business.
KVK continues to prepare bills individually, pricing the particular parts and work involved rather than using standardized menu pricing. Robin and Zach described that choice as a way to keep charges tied to each customer’s specific repair, even when it takes more time in the office.
Relationships that last
On the morning of this interview, a phone call offered a reminder of just how far some customer relationships go back.
The caller remembered Zach as a child riding his bicycle around Hope. Robin recalled that the same customer was among Darrin’s early installation jobs after joining the business.
Years later, he was calling KVK again.
Those connections are part of doing business in the communities where the people answering the phone and arriving at the door have roots of their own. For Darrin, that customer loyalty stands alongside his employees as one of the most meaningful measures of what KVK has built.
Looking toward the next 30 years
As KVK looks ahead, its leaders want to continue doing the work well, supporting their employees and showing up for customers.
“This job can’t always be about making a nickel,” Zach said. “This job has to be about helping people in different situations.”
That might mean responding when an air conditioner fails in extreme heat or a furnace stops working in bitter cold. It means recognizing that the person making the call needs help—and that providing it sometimes requires employees and owners to give up personal time.
For Darrin, years spent training employees have also created confidence in the company’s future. Where he once worried about what would happen if he were unexpectedly unable to work, he now trusts his installation team to carry on.
The company is working toward a succession plan to ensure the hard work and growth of the past three decades continue beyond its current leadership.
Thirty years of creating local jobs, building trust and showing up for neighbors—that’s a Roadmarkable legacy worth carrying forward.
For Robin, the message to the customers and communities that have supported KVK is straightforward.
“We aren’t going anywhere for a long, long time.”
KVK will host Driving Dickinson County’s monthly Morning Drive networking gathering Tuesday, Oct. 6, from 8 to 9 a.m. at 108 N. Nebraska Ave. in Woodbine. The public is welcome to come and go during the hour, meet the team and visit over coffee and pastries.
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