By Abbey Cannan
A Cooroy family business is celebrating 30 years of servicing the community of loyal customers with the help of their hardworking staff.
Hotgas, originally known as Cooroy & Hinterland Gas, and later Red-E-Gas, was founded by John Arnold in 1990 when he was strawberry farming at Carters Ridge.
John said he had no idea the business would go on for three decades when it first came to fruition.
“We had gas on the house and there was an old fellow here that was a local agent. We would buy gas from him but he couldn’t keep doing it. It was offered to me and so I took it on,“ he said.
Starting out selling 10 cylinders a month from home, John quickly saw further opportunity to deliver to the locals in Cooroy and the Mary Valley from his one tonne Holden ute.
“There’s been a lot of opportunities during the last 30 years which we have embraced, but never in my wildest dreams did I think it would get where it is today,“ he said.
“We’ve grown in small steps and at times we’ve had to mortgage the house and the property to get us through things but it’s always been a steady growth. You do the right thing and people come to you.
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The successful business, which is now run by John’s daughter, Shannon Arnold, has grown to a crew of 14 loyal staff members and a large LPG depot in Yandina.
“We have a loyal, hardworking and experienced team. Des and Mel our managers have been with Hotgas for 20 years. Our foundations are strong with the business having 144 years’ experience between the team in the gas industry,“ Shannon said.
“We are members of the local community as well. John lived on a pineapple farm in Woombye as a boy. Jan grew up in Noosa as a teenager, even living on the edge of National Park for some time. Our children grew up here in Cooroy, it’s a family business. We value our community and value our customers and display that in how we operate.“
John said 30 years seemed to have passed very quickly.
“We have great satisfaction in our achievements,“ he said.
“Looking forward, we hope for a slower pace as we step into retirement and are so excited that we are keeping the family legacy alive, with our daughter Shannon taking the Hotgas helm.“
