Air-Systems Engineering was founded in 1991 by Mike Walton, a seasoned expert in the mechanical service industry. After years of watching poor service cost customers money and patience, Mike built the company he thought Northern Colorado deserved: a highly skilled, competitive service provider that businesses could trust.
Today ASE is a second-generation company led by Mike's son, Philip Walton, an HVAC engineer who grew up in the trade. The service work Mike built the company on is still the backbone. What has been added around it is mechanical construction — plan and spec, renovation, process, and design-build — and mechanical engineering produced in-house.
The company operates with small, specialized teams and is selective about the work it pursues, choosing projects where technical capability is what decides the outcome. Small is a structure, not a ceiling: a relatively small organization consistently executes technically significant work, and the investment goes into the things that make that possible — skilled field personnel, technical training, tools, technology, controls capability, and engineering.
“How you do anything is how you do everything.”
That's the company mantra, and we mean it literally: the way we approach the smallest task reflects how we approach all of them. It shows up in weld quality, in drawing accuracy, in a Method of Procedure delivered a week early — and in our other guiding principle: bad news does not get better with time. Owners always know where their project stands.
| Direct communication | You talk to the people doing the work. There is no account layer between an owner or a general contractor and the person who can actually answer the question. |
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| Small specialized teams | Projects are staffed with a small group that stays on the job from the first walk through closeout — no handoffs, no diffusion of responsibility. |
| Engineering next to execution | The people producing drawings are on the job site. Design decisions get tested against installation and access while they can still be changed. |
| Service knowledge into design | What technicians find in operating buildings — equipment that can't be reached, sequences nobody can follow, selections that age badly — is treated as design input, not as complaints. |
| Individual ownership | Work is owned by a person, not a department. Technical responsibility sits with whoever is closest to the problem, and they are expected to carry it. |
| Selective pursuit | We chase work where mechanical capability decides the outcome, and pass on work where it doesn't. That is what keeps a small organization capable of hard projects. |
Experienced service technicians, installers, sheet metal and piping craftspeople, engineering and controls staff, and apprentices trained alongside them — all based in Northern Colorado.
The people in the field aren't support staff. On an ASE job the person closest to the problem is the one standing in the mechanical room, and the company is organized so that judgment carries weight: they call the sequence, they say what the install needs, and they're backed with the tools, training, and engineering support to get it right the first time. Licensing, certification, and continuing training aren't compliance paperwork here — they're the product.
| Engineering | Degreed HVAC engineering in-house — load calculations, system selection, Revit modeling, and construction drawings held to ASHRAE 90.1, ASHRAE 62.1, and current mechanical, plumbing, and energy codes. |
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| Licensing | ICC Master Mechanical, licensed in multiple Colorado municipalities. |
| Trade | Journeyman HVAC and Universal CFC certification. |
| Field | Rigging, aerial lift, and forklift certification for crane and equipment work. |
| Safety | OSHA and MSHA qualifications with Veriforce compliance support for industrial sites. |
| Manufacturer | Multiple equipment manufacturer service and startup authorizations. |
Around the team is a network of trusted trade partners in controls, electrical, structural, TAB, and crane work, built over three decades.
Service call, bid invitation, or a system you need designed and built — start with the people who will actually do the work.