The name

Heartwood is the wood in the middle of the trunk. It is the oldest: it formed in the tree’s first years and stopped growing long ago. The sap no longer passes through it. Everything in the tree that is alive has moved outwards, to the new rings, to the branches, to the leaves.

And yet it is the heartwood that takes the weight. It is the densest and the darkest wood, the wood that resists water and time, the wood that keeps the trunk from bending in the wind. From the outside none of it is visible. Only when the trunk is opened does what was holding it up appear.

This is what an HVAC, electrical or plumbing company is inside a building. It sits behind the walls, above the false ceilings, in the basement, under the floor. The people who come and go every day do not know the name of whoever installed it, nor of whoever comes back every six months to keep it working. And that is the sign it was done well.

It is noticed on the day it fails. When an operating theatre loses its air conditioning halfway through surgery. When a full hotel, in August, has no hot water. When a factory stops because there is no power. On the other three hundred and sixty-four days, the building works and nobody thinks about it. There are people who spend their lives holding up buildings where nobody knows their name.

We chose this name because it is also what we want to be for these companies. The work belongs to the people who do it. Our part is to take the weight, to be there when we are needed and to stay out of sight when we are not.

Grupo Cerne (Cerne SGPS, Lda, NIPC 519594002) has no connection with other companies named Cerne.