Meet the PolarCore Heating and Air Conditioning Team

Seven people work under the PolarCore name — one founder, one operations manager, one office manager, and four field technicians. That headcount is deliberate. Boone County has roughly 24,000 single-family homes, another 3,600 in Callaway County, and a scattering of commercial accounts across Jefferson City and Fulton that a small crew can actually serve on a two-hour response window. Beyond that number, dispatch integrity breaks down, quality control slips, and the reason Dean Wines founded this company in 2016 — the diagnostic gap between what the meter shows and what the customer gets quoted — starts creeping back in. Everyone here is either a licensed technician, a trade-school-trained tech, or someone whose job depends on knowing the field work well enough to route it correctly.

Dean Wines — Owner and Founder

Dean holds City of Columbia Mechanical Contractor License #MCL-2016-04187 and EPA Section 608 Universal certification #608U-2010-284719. He worked seven years at a regional Carrier dealership on Business Loop 70 before founding PolarCore in 2016 with two techs and a service van. He is NATE-certified in Air Conditioning Service, Air Distribution, and Gas Heating Service, completed ACCA Manual J, S, and D coursework in 2012 through HVAC Excellence, and has held RSES Class HE membership since 2014.

Dean still runs field calls three days a week — Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday — because staying off the meters means losing the ability to catch failures the newer techs haven’t seen yet. His current specialty inside the crew is combustion diagnostics on older gas-fired equipment: 1990s and early 2000s furnaces where the cracked-heat-exchanger sales pitch gets thrown around more than the actual failure rate justifies. He runs a Bacharach Fyrite Insight combustion analyzer on every furnace visit and carries a borescope for camera inspection through the flame sensor port.

Bradley Hollander — Operations Manager

Bradley handles dispatching, project management on installations, permit coordination with City of Columbia Building Codes Division and Boone County Resource Management, and warranty registration for every install. He came to PolarCore in 2019 after twelve years running commercial HVAC service operations for a St. Louis mechanical contractor working office towers along the Clayton corridor. He is a Ranken Technical College HVAC-R program graduate (2011), holds EPA 608 Universal, and is NATE-certified in Air Conditioning Service.

Bradley grew up in Columbia — Hickman High School class of 2005 — and spent summers doing roof-work labor for his uncle’s commercial roofing business before deciding HVAC-R was the trade with more career depth. He is the person answering the phone when someone calls about a commercial rooftop economizer failure at 4 p.m. on a Friday, and the person deciding whether the fastest path to warm air on a Saturday morning is Tyler in the north-side van or Ryan in the south-side van.

Beth Lindquist — Office Manager and Dispatcher

Beth manages the front office, customer intake, service scheduling for tune-ups and maintenance-plan visits, invoicing, and the ServiceTitan CRM that holds every equipment record for every property PolarCore has ever serviced. She is not a technician but has spent the last five years learning enough about the trade to route calls intelligently. She has a University of Missouri Trulaske College of Business degree in Business Administration (2015).

Beth is the reason a caller with a “AC not blowing cold” complaint gets asked whether the thermostat display is lit, whether the outdoor unit is running, and whether the indoor blower is running — three questions that narrow the diagnosis from thirty possibilities to three or four before a technician is dispatched. She also runs the maintenance-plan renewal cycle, which means she is tracking equipment ages, refrigerant types, and manufacturer warranty expiration dates on roughly 640 residential accounts.

Tyler Emmerson — Senior Service Technician

Tyler leads residential service for older Columbia housing stock — East Campus, Old Southwest, Benton-Stephens, Grasslands, Shepard Boulevard. He has fourteen years in the trade, started as an apprentice under Dean at the Business Loop 70 dealership in 2011, and joined PolarCore in 2017. He is NATE-certified in Air Conditioning Service, Gas Heating Service, and Heat Pumps, holds EPA 608 Universal, and completed ACCA Manual J residential load calculation training in 2018.

Tyler’s specialty inside the crew is diagnostic work on pre-1980 equipment and homes: coal-to-gas-retrofitted heating systems in 1920s East Campus bungalows, octopus-style ductwork from 1955 basements, and asbestos-wrapped return trunks (documented, photographed, and reported to the homeowner — never disturbed by our crew, always referred to a licensed abatement contractor). His truck carries a Testo 425 hot-wire anemometer, a manometer for gas pressure and static pressure, and enough capacitors and pressure switches to fix roughly 80% of the no-heat calls he answers on the first visit.

Ryan Beaumont — Install Team Lead

Ryan runs the two-person installation crew for full system replacements and new-construction HVAC. He has eleven years installing residential and light-commercial systems and joined PolarCore in 2018 from a Kansas City-based Trane Comfort Specialist dealer. He is NATE-certified in HVAC Installation (both Air Conditioning and Air Distribution), holds EPA 608 Universal, and completed ACCA Manual D duct design coursework in 2020.

Ryan’s recent work concentrates in the tight-envelope subdivisions south and east of Columbia — Thornbrook, Bluff Creek Estates, Old Hawthorne, Bedford Walk — where 2018 and newer IECC compliance means ACH50 numbers under 4.0 and the ventilation calculation has to include ASHRAE 62.2 mechanical outdoor air rates. He is currently the crew’s specialist on Mitsubishi Hyper-Heat ductless mini-split and multi-zone installations, which have grown from roughly 6% of new installs in 2020 to 22% in 2025 as heat pump economics continue to shift for Zone 4A.

Wesley Dunn — Service Technician

Wesley handles the majority of residential tune-up visits, maintenance-plan appointments, and low-complexity repairs. He has six years in the trade, is a Moberly Area Community College HVAC program graduate (2020), holds EPA 608 Universal, and is NATE-certified in Air Conditioning Service. He is currently working toward his NATE Gas Heating Service certification with an exam scheduled for the fall of 2026.

Wesley is the technician most likely to catch a preventable failure a year before it becomes a no-heat call: a contactor with pitted contacts on a 12-year-old condenser, a hot-surface igniter drawing 3.2 amps when it should be pulling 4.1 (a sign of imminent failure), a condensate float switch stuck in the tripped position from summer-earlier biofilm. His tune-up documentation runs six pages per visit including photographs, meter readings, and manufacturer-spec comparisons.

Aaron Vasquez — Service Technician and Apprentice

Aaron is the newest member of the crew, working toward full journeyman status through a combination of ride-alongs with Tyler and Ryan, in-house training with Dean, and coursework at the Columbia Area Career Center’s HVAC-R program. He has two years in the trade, holds EPA 608 Type II certification, and is scheduled to complete his Universal certification in October 2026. He is a graduate of Centralia High School (2022) and lives in his hometown, which puts him first-in-line for dispatch to the northern service area along Route Z.

How the Team Works Together

Dispatching runs through Bradley and Beth. Emergency calls after hours route through a shared answering service that pages the on-call technician — a rotation that includes Tyler, Ryan, and Dean, never Wesley or Aaron alone. Complex diagnostic calls — a homeowner second-opinioning a $9,000 replacement quote, a commercial rooftop unit with an intermittent fault that has stumped a previous contractor — get routed to Dean or Tyler directly. Installations run as a two-person crew (Ryan plus one) with a service technician cycling in for start-up and commissioning. Every install includes a post-installation return visit at 30 days for verification testing: static pressure, superheat and subcooling, combustion analysis, and thermostat calibration.

Team-Wide Standards and Continuing Education

Every technician holds EPA Section 608 Universal or Type II certification (Aaron is Type II pending Universal). Every technician has at least one NATE specialty certification. Every technician documents combustion analysis, static pressure, superheat, and subcooling readings on every applicable visit and uploads them to the customer’s ServiceTitan record before leaving the property. Every technician carries digital thermal imaging (FLIR or Testo) and combustion analyzer equipment as standard on-truck inventory.

Continuing education is tracked annually through the City of Columbia Building Codes Division to keep pace with 2018 IMC, IFGC, and code-cycle amendments. The team also completes an annual full-day training session together on evolving refrigerant standards — the R-410A phase-down under the AIM Act, R-454B installation and reclamation procedures, and R-32 handling for the small-charge minisplit systems that entered the market in 2024. Manufacturer training runs quarterly through Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Mitsubishi, and Bosch factory representatives who travel to the Columbia office or run virtual sessions through their dealer networks.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many technicians does PolarCore have on staff?

Seven total: Dean Wines (owner and lead technician, still on trucks Tuesday through Thursday), Bradley Hollander (operations manager and dispatch, from a St. Louis commercial background), Beth Lindquist (office manager and CRM/dispatch), and four field technicians — Tyler Emmerson (senior residential, 14 years), Ryan Beaumont (install team lead, 11 years), Wesley Dunn (service, 6 years), and Aaron Vasquez (apprentice, 2 years, Centralia native). The headcount is deliberate: it lets us maintain sub-two-hour response times across Boone, Cole, Callaway, Audrain, and Cooper counties without dilution of diagnostic quality.

Are all the technicians NATE certified?

Yes, all field technicians hold at least one NATE (North American Technician Excellence) specialty certification. Dean holds three (AC Service, Air Distribution, Gas Heating Service). Tyler holds three (AC Service, Gas Heating Service, Heat Pumps). Ryan holds two (Installation AC, Installation Air Distribution). Bradley holds AC Service. Wesley holds AC Service and is scheduled to complete Gas Heating Service in fall 2026. Aaron is currently studying for his first NATE Ready-to-Work module.

Where were the PolarCore technicians trained?

Trade school backgrounds are a mix. Ranken Technical College in St. Louis (Bradley, 2011). Moberly Area Community College (Wesley, 2020). Columbia Area Career Center (Aaron, current). Dean and Tyler came up through the apprenticeship route under a Carrier dealer on Business Loop 70. Ryan trained through the manufacturer apprenticeship at a Kansas City Trane Comfort Specialist. Beth’s background is MU Trulaske School of Business — she manages office operations, not field work, but has learned enough about the trade in five years to route calls intelligently.

What continuing education does the team pursue?

Three tracks. Municipal code cycle: annual hours through the City of Columbia Building Codes Division on the 2018 IMC, IFGC, and Boone County amendments. Refrigerant transition: annual full-day team training on R-410A phase-down under the AIM Act, R-454B procedures, and R-32 handling for small-charge minisplits. Manufacturer training: quarterly factory rep sessions through Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Mitsubishi, and Bosch dealer networks. NATE certifications require recertification every two years, which each technician maintains on individual schedule.

Do the same technicians handle installation and repair, or are those separate teams?

Partially separated. Ryan Beaumont runs a dedicated two-person install crew (Ryan plus one, typically Aaron or a rotating service tech) for full system replacements and new-construction HVAC. Service work — repairs, tune-ups, maintenance-plan visits, and no-heat/no-cool emergency calls — runs through Tyler, Wesley, and Aaron with Dean cycling in on complex diagnostic calls. Every new installation gets a 30-day post-installation return visit from a service technician for commissioning verification: static pressure, superheat and subcooling, combustion analysis, and thermostat calibration. That handoff catches installation issues before they become warranty claims.

Contact PolarCore Heating and Air Conditioning

Our Corona Road office is the dispatch base for the entire seven-person crew, minutes from the I-70 and US-63 interchange in southwest Columbia. Bradley and Beth staff the office phone during business hours; the on-call rotation covers nights, weekends, and holidays for emergency service across Boone County and mid-Missouri. Whether you need to schedule a maintenance-plan visit with Wesley, request a full-system replacement quote from Ryan, or reach Dean directly for a diagnostic second opinion on a five-figure replacement pitch, our licensed technicians are available.

• Emergency Line (24/7): (573) 615-6659
• Address: 2011 Corona Rd #340, Columbia, MO 65203
• Email: info@polarcoreheatingandairconditioning.xyz
• City of Columbia Mechanical Contractor License: #MCL-2016-04187
• Boone County Contractor Registration: #BCR-16-2847
• EPA Section 608 Universal: #608U-2010-284719

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Office Hours

• Emergency Service: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
• Office Staff: Monday – Saturday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
• Closed: Sundays and State/Federal Holidays (emergency line always active)