“My dad caught me on the right day. I was having a tough day at whatever I was doing, and the travel was getting to me. And my dad said ‘Hey, I’m gonna retire. Do you want to buy me out?’ And I said ‘No, I really don’t know if I do,'” Marty said. “I said ‘I don’t know if I want to do this or not,’ but I’d be remiss if I didn’t give it a shot, and I was at a point with Lennox where I was being promoted about every two years… I just got to that point where I was like ‘If I’m gonna make the jump, I need to do it where I can do it with a clear conscience, and I need to do it where I don’t burn the bridge.’ So I gave six months notice.”

Two decades later, Hardon hasn’t just succeeded in growing the family business, but also in helping to bring life back to downtown Tama and making a broader economic impact on his community through his real estate purchases and redevelopments. As a Lennox dealer, he’s still connected to the company where he once worked, and they recently recognized Hardon’s Services with a Community Dealer Award.

“When I moved back here in 2005, downtown had two bars, a Ben Franklin store that was closing and a hair salon, and the building condition, like every one of these downtowns, was in bad shape. So we took it upon ourselves to start to revive the town,” he said. “The town just continued to decline as far as the way it looked, the way it was to be approachable as a place to live… It just seemed like moving back here was not appealing from somebody who lived in the city.”

Under Ed Hardon’s leadership, the company, headquartered at 114 W. 4th St., had employed three people, and Marty initially worked under his late father for a year doing primarily commercial jobs at multifamily residential structures. When he officially took over, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to grow the business, but eventually, it became a necessity.

A Hardon’s employee works on a “Feel the Love” HVAC system installation, which are solicited by nominations for deserving individuals and organizations. Marty Hardon said the company has completed three or four of them annually for the last several years.

When he noticed that people were buying downtown buildings just to use them for junk storage while they continued to deteriorate, he stepped in, started buying them himself, renovating apartments and renting out the main floors to new businesses.

“The key is (that) you’ve gotta get the dwelling space on top moving. It’s gotta be used. If you get enough of that, then there’s a need for other businesses to appear,” he said. “You’ve got a population center (where) they want to be able to shop for groceries. They want to get a haircut. They want to be able to get a milkshake, whatever. So then, the big hurdle is, you’ve gotta build restaurants.”

Two years ago, Hardon’s branched into an outdoors focused retail store with a focus on Traeger grills, and Marty has recently ramped up marketing of his construction projects building new homes for local individuals.

“A lot of our businesses have kind of grown out of necessity because no one else was doing it, so we decided to do it,” Marty said.

As a means of giving back, Hardon’s has performed about three to four “Feel the Love” installations of HVAC units free of charge to deserving individuals or organizations in the area per year, some of which have been covered in the T-R.

“There are a lot of dealers that don’t engage. They deliberately avoid it because you’re spending money. Whatever amount of money that you would charge for that job, you’re donating, so Lennox donates the equipment, which is a big piece of it,” Hardon said. “We’ve found cases where we just couldn’t say no.”

Hardon was also recognized as the 2024 Tama Citizen of the Year, but he was quick to note that he’s had some help in his endeavors along the way, crediting his employees, the State Bank of Toledo for its willingness to lend even when a huge return on investment isn’t guaranteed, and the team of like minded individuals assembled when he first returned to help promote economic development in Tama and Toledo.

“The truth of the matter is it takes partnerships, so for me to say that I did all this is completely false,” he said.

During a recent ceremony, Lennox leaders recognized Hardon’s and Marty Hardon himself for their extensive efforts within the community to make Tama a better place to live, work and play, and it won’t be stopping anytime soon. Hardon acknowledged the trial and error associated with figuring out which tenant businesses will succeed and which ones won’t — and, of course, he and other Tama-Toledo property owners were forced to deal with the fallout from the devastating 2020 derecho — but he’s happy to lend a hand to aspiring entrepreneurs as they pursue their American dreams.

“I don’t have the ability to finance people, but I will roller skate their business into solidity if they need me to,” he said.

Currently, Hardon is in the process of adding five new downtown apartments with five more on the other side of the highway on Third Street next on the itinerary. He’s always looking for more dining options and would love to add another pub like The Tama Pump somewhere in the area.

“It’s not necessarily that people need a place to go drink. They need a place to gather,” he said.