Who Said Yes to You First?

Somebody said yes to you before you had earned it. A coach, a boss, a neighbor, the person who put their name on something for you when there was nothing to check. Most of us can name them in about two seconds.

Kooler is standing here because of one of those. Our first contract was eighty-five hundred dollars, from a stranger in another town, more than ten years ago, back when this was one guy, one truck, and a standard he could not yet prove. There was no reason to take the chance. Somebody took it anyway.

So this year we are giving it back — one complete garage door system, up to that same eighty-five hundred, professionally installed, free — to a Western Slope neighbor who has given this valley more than they were ever paid for. It is called The First Yes Award, and it is presented the week following the HBA of Western Colorado's Parade of Homes.

If a name already came to mind while you were reading that, that is the one — go put it in. The rest of this page is just the details.

This is not a hardship award

We want to be plain about that, because it changes who you think of.

We are not looking for the person who needs it most. We are looking for the person who gave the most. The coach who has run the same practice on the same field since their own kids aged out of it. The neighbor who plows the whole street and has never once brought it up. The person who has quietly organized the meals after every funeral in town since before anybody thought to thank them.

Contribution, not hardship. You already know who they are. Most of us do — we just never get asked.

What the award actually is

One complete garage door system, professionally installed, up to a total value of $8,500. Not a coupon and not a discount. A Kraftsman builds it the way we build everything else. There is no cash equivalent and no substitutions.

Nothing to buy. No purchase anywhere in it, and the recipient does not need to be a Kooler customer. There is no catch here — we are giving away a system. The only thing we will not pretend away is the tax code: the IRS counts an award this size as income, so it comes with a Form 1099. That one is the law's, not ours, and you should hear it from us now instead of in January.

The nominee owns the home where the door would go, and that home is inside our Western Slope service area. Two more worth knowing before you write: you cannot nominate yourself, and Kooler people and their families are not eligible. The rest of it is four plain lines on the award page.

How to nominate somebody

Go to the nomination form and tell us about them. Their name, their town, and the story. Then your name and one way to reach you, so we can find you if the neighbor you picked is the one. Six boxes, two of them optional.

A few sentences is plenty. We are not scoring your writing — we are reading for the thing they did that nobody paid them for. Write it the way you would say it to somebody at the counter.

You can nominate someone without telling them, and that is usually the better version. If the neighbor you name is not the one, their name and their story stay with us — we do not publish them. If they are the one, we ask their permission before we say so anywhere.

Nominations close October 4, 2026 at 11:59 PM Mountain Time.

Why a garage door company is doing this

Because the thing that built this company was not a marketing budget. It was one person taking a chance on somebody who had not proved anything yet.

That is the thing this valley does better than anywhere else we have worked, and it almost never gets named out loud. Somebody says yes first — before it is safe, before there is any evidence, before anybody else has. Years later the whole thing is standing there in the driveway, and the person who started it never hears about it.

We can put a door on one of those people. So we are going to.

The only thing we need is the name. Somebody in your life said yes first. Tell us who.

We Got You.