machine owner spotlight
Randy Schindler
Meeker, Colorado
Randy and Julie are high school sweethearts who gave up everything they had in order to achieve their dream of owning a large plot of land in beautiful Meeker, Colorado. Randy is a high-end plumber specializing in custom designs. Through his work in Meeker, he found that a number of residents were dissatisfied with the local water quality. In an effort to solve the issue for his neighbors, Randy found ice and water vending to be a perfect solution.
PRODUCTS OWNED

Randy: Hi, I’m Randy. This is my wife Julie. We have a Kooler Ice business in Meeker that we’re on about the third and fourth year going. We named it Hydration Station. We’re in business with our oldest son, and we really like the machine.
Julie and I were high school sweethearts. She lived down the road from me. She had a dairy farm, her family did. So, shortly after high school we got married and-
Julie: Well, but before that your family wanted to buy a horse from me. That’s how it started. So, I sold him a horse.
Randy: For my little sister.
Julie: Right.
Randy: But that aside, we, Julie and I, have been married now for 37 years. We moved up here to Meeker in 2004. We pretty much sold everything we had and bought this 160 acres, and we lived in a tent and a camper for a year and a half while we built this house.
We have a plumbing business, specialize in custom plumbing, high dollar-end, high-end plumbing. It took off well in town, and we established a good name with the plumbing company.
As you can tell, Julie and I like to travel. We’ve been to Africa. We went on a 22-day safari down there with Bill Wiley out of Meeker. The hunting here is very well with Meeker. Rio Blanco County attracts a lot of deer and elk hunters from nationwide, worldwide, and being in that type of background has afforded Julie and I the opportunity to go to Africa and have the opportunity to hunt there. I would say it was one of the more fun trips we’ve had.
That is true. It was quite the experience.
We’ve been to Mexico. We’ve been down there to vacation but also to do some deep sea fishing.
Through my plumbing business, I felt that we needed to provide something in town for people to get good quality drinking water and good ice, and so that led us into the purchase of the Kooler Ice machine.
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And they delivered it. David [Debo 00:02:14] was really nice. So, they delivered it. All we had to do was line up a forklift. The boys and I did the pad. We did all the plumbing. We did all the electrical. Kooler brought the machine out. We set it, and within the weekend we were up and running.
Things I like most about the machine, for once its appearance, the lighting on it. It’s a real attractive machine. The quality of the product that we’re putting out is superior, I think, and being able to maintenance the machine, changing filters is very simple. It does what it says it does. So, to me, that’s a major selling thing. If you do what you say you’re going to do.
If you’re interested in Kooler Ice or in any vending, I have researched it. I’ve been in the car wash business for a long time, and the Kooler Ice machine, I can’t go back to the simplicity of how easy it is to maintain.
Well, the advice that I would have would be to make sure that you put the machine in a really good location.
I’m extremely pleased with Kooler Ice. If you’re looking for simplicity, a good way to make some extra money, I would suggest Kooler Ice.
WHAT OTHERS HAVE TO SAY