Who Said Yes to You First? The Story Behind a Free Garage Door

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 to a Western Slope neighbor who has given this valley more than they were ever paid for. One complete garage door system, up to that same eighty-five hundred, professionally installed, free. It is called The First Yes Award, and the names are in.

If a name already came to mind while you were reading that, hold onto it. Nominations for this round closed October 4, 2026 and we are reading them now, but the award comes back around. The rest of this page is why it exists.

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 that were part of it: 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.

What happens now

Nominations closed October 4, 2026 at 11:59 PM Mountain Time. Every one of them gets read by a person here, and we are reading them now.

Everybody who put a name in hears from us either way. If the neighbor they named is the one, we ask that neighbor's permission before we say the name anywhere. Every other name and story stays with us. We do not publish them.

And we are doing this again — the award comes back around, so keep that neighbor in mind. The whole thing, including the posted terms, stays on the award page.

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. People told us who, and we are reading every one of those names now.

We Got You.