Chris Mendoza's life changed with a piece of mail.
He was living on Long Island, working in retail, engaged to be married — and then a hand-written letter arrived from his grandfather Jack, who had run The Appliance Doctor in the greater Bangor area for 36 years and believed Chris was the right person to carry it forward. Chris and his fiancée Dorothy read it together, took the leap, and moved to Maine in 2016.
In this episode of Maine Thrive Voices, host Sandy Smith sits down with Chris to talk about learning the trade from a man who could diagnose a machine by ear, the three years they worked side by side before Jack's passing in 2019, and what it means to carry a legacy through kitchen doors all over the Penobscot Valley — where customers still remember Jack by name.
Along the way: the Long Island-to-Maine culture shock, what "kind, honest service" actually looks like on a service call, the appliances that give Maine homeowners the most trouble (laundry on well water and refrigerators lead the pack), a pet-hair maintenance lesson from Sandy's own washer, why Chris urges people to list working appliances on Facebook Marketplace instead of throwing them away — and the phone number that has never changed: the same Hudson-Bradford line his grandfather answered.
Reach The Appliance Doctor:
Call or text: 207-327-1000
Website: https://appliancedoc.org
Community profile: https://penobscotvalleythrive.com/detail-page/appliance-doctor-inc
Read the companion Insight on Maine Thrive Insights:
https://mainethriveinsights.com/chris-mendoza
Maine Thrive Voices is produced by Smith Digital Solutions, LLC in Bangor, Maine. Learn more at smithdigitalsolutions.com.
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