Melvin Kauffman goes to work four days a week at Delta A/C Supply in Lathrop. His day-to-day routine is mostly desk work such as opening the mail. And once in a while, he gets his truck loaded up with products ordered by customers and delivers them to the construction site.

If you think Kauffman is enjoying a cushy job and being paid for it, think again. This World War II merchant marine, whose ships carried ammunitions to the war effort in the Pacific Theatre, will turn 90 this week - Nov. 22, to be exact. But the still fit and spry soon-to-be nonagenarian is showing no signs of slowing down or changing his daily activity pace at all. The value of hard work and time-honored work ethic that he learned early on, literally at his father’s knee, and which sustained him through the years of working for others and, later, is evident to this day running his own business.

His company, Delta A/C Supply, has been a part of Lathrop’s business landscape for the past 37 years, serving the needs of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning industry with equipment and supplies from the same location at West Yosemite Avenue just past McKinley Avenue. The Manteca businessman first started Tru-Fit Manufacturing at this site in 1979 where workers churned out sheet metal products needed by those engaged in the HVAC industry, an industry he knew quite well having had 27 years of experience under his belt as a contractor in the Bay Area. About four years later, he took a step further toward serving their growing clientele and established Delta A/C Supply effectively making the Yosemite Avenue facility a convenient one-stop manufacturing and supply source for their customers.

Several of his employees have been with the company since close to the time he opened the doors of his business in Lathrop, signifying a loyalty that speaks volumes about Kauffman as an employer.

A business mentor

His employees, though, are not the only fortunate beneficiaries of his tutelage and example. Many of the business associates he has worked with through the years hold him with the highest regard not only for his sharp business acumen but also for what Kauffman has done for them above and beyond the mutually beneficial financial connection. Frank Fiore, owner of Center Plumbing on North Main Street in Manteca, for example, who has known Kauffman for 35 years since they first met at a Sheet Metal and Air Conditioning Contractors’ National Association (SMACCNA) business seminar held in the Bay Area, can attest that.

“He actually taught me a lot,” said Fiore who described Kauffman as a business mentor who taught him “how to keep track of my costs, how to keep track of materials..., actually how to run my business,” among many other things.

Kauffman did all that mentoring “on his own,” noted Fiore, recalling the early years when Kauffman would stop by Center Plumbing and would just walk into his office for a chat.

“He’s always been a totally honest person, always willing to help everyone. He’s been such a mentor to me as far as how to run a business, how to deal with people, and negotiating with someone. I’ll always remember that,” said Fiore.

Matthew Smith, the second-generation owner of Smith Heating and Air in Stockton, similarly noted the valuable tutelage he received from Kauffman, whom he considers as “a very good friend,” in the 25 years they have known each other.

Like Fiore, Smith met Kauffman through their mutual involvement with SMACCNA, when they were “fellow contractors” in the Bay Area. When Kauffman opened his business in Lathrop, Smith Heating and Air became a regular customer, and has been for nearly three decades. Smith explains why.

“He is a very honorable and reputable person and as a businessman. He’s done a great job of evolving and transforming his company with all the changes going on in the industry,” Smith noted.

Kauffman has always stressed that “focus on people and customer service” are the most important thing, “and he has transferred that to all of his people, and they do a good job, added Smith.

Family life

As busy as he was being the breadwinner to his family and, later, running his businesses, Kauffman never forgot his responsibilities as a father to his two sons, Harry and Randy. Both fondly recall many happy childhood memories with their father — kicking football on the street in front of their home in Castro Valley long before heavy traffic claimed the small town’s serenity, patiently teaching Randy how to pitch a ball, and playing golf, among many others. Father and sons also shared an interest in car racing.

“We all enjoyed racing for a while. He was enthusiastic about it,” Randy said.

His father was also an avid golfer, winning championships at golf tournaments. 

“As a baseball coach, he taught me not to give up until you accomplish the tasks. He was the foundation that helped me start my avocation of 30 years of racing sports cars. Not many 70-year-olds can celebrate a birthday with their dad; I’m very thankful for that. From the age of 5 through my high school years, he showed me in many personal ways that my welfare was important to him,” said older son Harry who describes his father as a “hard-working self-made man.”

One of the things his father taught him early on “and up to my 20s and 30s, was the value of hard work,” said Harry who worked up until the age of 32 for his dad. He remembers that he actually started working with his father at about five or six years of age helping with “insulating duct work” in their living room at their hillside house in Hayward, one of two houses Kauffman built with his own hands at this location. Harry still vividly remembers how his father would open the garage door and pull the equipment out onto the driveway and work there. “That’s how he started; he started his first business there,” Harry said.

In addition to the two houses in Hayward, Kauffman also built a cottage in Arnold with the help of his late father, and just a few years ago, a house at the golf community of Pine Mountain Lake in Groveland which serves as the weekend home for him and his wife Joan.

Silent philanthropist,

patriotic American

One side of Kauffman that very few people knew was his philanthropy and community service especially those involving the youth. While living in Castro Valley, he coached a Babe Ruth baseball team that played for the Optimist Club. Two local community programs that currently enjoys his support are the Boys and Girls Clubs of Manteca and Lathrop, and the Mayor’s Art Purchase Award Show and Sale of Lathrop.

Randy said his father is a “humble and patient man” who thoroughly enjoys helping others “without anybody knowing.”

One who has heard those stories through the years is Wendy Churukian, Joan’s daughter.

“He’s done some amazing things and never told anybody about it. He never said a word. He’s just that kind of guy,” said Churukian who describes her stepfather as “kind of like a modern-day very capable John Wayne” who played semi-pro football and semi-pro golf, “and like the quintessential cowboy working hard, doing his best and not saying anything about it.”

Twenty-five years ago, when she had a bone-marrow transplant, Kauffman’s “quiet assurance” telling her, “I’ve been there; I’ve had stomach cancer. You can get through it. I’m with you’,” gave her the strength and courage to persevere through the ordeal.

Churukian, who is married to a Los Angeles plastic surgeon, still remembers her reaction to those kind words. “I thought, wow! He really cares. He’s been there. He knows what he’s talking about.”

But one thing Kauffman never made any effort to hide is his patriotism, said his very impressed younger son, Randy, whose business, Next Energy, has been providing solar service to residential and commercial clients for three decades.

“He’s American through and through; he’s very patriotic.”

Randy also may have discovered his father’s secret to a happy and healthy long life.

“He’s not a complainer. He just doesn’t complain, doesn’t ask for help. He’s very old school,” all of which help lower his stress level, he noted smiling. “That’s why he’s 90 years old,” he said proudly of his father.

And, he quickly added with a smile, “he’s got Joan, a good woman, behind him.”

Sparks at a bank’s

drive-thru window

Kauffman’s first glimpse of his future wife was at a bank’s drive-thru window where she was working as a teller. A few days after that initial sighting, he went inside the bank and asked her out.

“I don’t date married men,” was her direct answer.

“I’m not married,” was his quick response.

For their first date, he took her to the restaurant in San Francisco’s finest hotel where the night’s featured entertainers were Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald. When he brought her home that evening, “he kissed me on the cheek and said ‘I’ll call you’,” Joan remembered. The call came in the form of a dozen yellow roses at her door the next morning.

They were married on the Fourth of July in Tahoe. They have been together for 46 years.

She fell in love with her husband’s eyes, she confessed. “They were honest.”

The strong mutual love is there still. “He’s very good to me; he really is, which makes my daughter very happy.”

Churukian wholeheartedly agrees. “I think she’s been very good for him, and vice versa. They are well matched.”