Meet the Founders

Steve grew up with a father who never called a repairman. Before he finished high school, Steve could handle electrical, plumbing and mechanical repairs, replace a roof, do brake jobs, and service engines and transmissions. He and his father also finished a basement together, from bare studs to final trim. His first paid job was as a finish framer.

During his junior year he studied computer programming at Warren Tech and ran a summer business building and repairing computers. Both taught him the same thing: he belonged in the field, not behind a desk.

After high school, Steve spent two years serving the people of Patagonia in the Argentina Neuquén Mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

He then served 10 years in the U.S. Navy. He finished two years of technical training as a Fire Controlman, one of the Navy’s weapons direction systems technicians. He then spent five years aboard the guided-missile frigate USS Ingraham (FFG-61), maintaining its Mk 92 Fire Control System through multiple deployments. Next came recruiting duty at Navy Recruiting District San Diego, where he ran a recruiting station and recruited candidates for Special Operations and Special Warfare.

When family called him home to Colorado, Steve chose HVAC. At Sensible Heating and Cooling he worked his way up from warehouse manager to installer, service technician, system design and sales, and business development, so he has held nearly every job in the business. As an early employee at Elephant Energy, he built the company’s HVAC program from the ground up: its trades partner program, QA/QC, technician training and HVAC technician department. Most recently he was Director of Operations at Mountain West Heat Pumps. That is where he and Brad Plunkett built the partnership that led them to start Zebra Heating and Cooling.

Steve brings a technician’s hands, a sailor’s discipline and an operator’s eye for process to every job.

Brad brings a rare mix of software, residential HVAC sales and design, and hands-on operations experience to Zebra Heating and Cooling, the company he co-founded with Steve. Raised in Darien, Connecticut, Brad graduated from Deerfield Academy and Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, he served as class vice president and rowed on the team ranked 14th in the nation. He then spent seven years helping companies put AI models into production and monitor the health of their software systems, working as both an account executive and a sales engineer.

Brad entered residential HVAC in 2023 at Helio Home, a home electrification startup later acquired by Jetson. In 2024, he became the first sales hire at Conduit Tech, which ServiceTitan later acquired. In seven months, he helped grow Conduit’s annual recurring revenue from $300,000 to $1 million. He first met Steve through Elephant Energy, and Steve became one of his customers at Conduit.

Eager to get back into the field, Brad joined Mountain West Heat Pumps as Director of Sales and IT, where he helped triple the company’s revenue in two years. He built digital tools that improved heat pump designs and cut proposal turnaround from days to minutes. He also streamlined office workflows, improved the customer experience, and made sure crews had what they needed on installation day.

At Mountain West, Steve became Brad’s HVAC design mentor. Tackling complex projects together taught them to speak candidly, trust each other’s judgment, and hold each other accountable. Those habits now shape how they run Zebra.

Brad is an active member of the Energy Efficiency Business Coalition and volunteers with Go Electric Colorado. Through Xcel Energy’s Clean Energy Careers Program, he speaks with young adults at career fairs about opportunities in clean energy and the trades.