What Supporting Contractors Looks Like

By Cass Jacoby.  

The success of the industry is reliant on working together, read on to learn what Hickman Edge Systems is doing to help contractors during this time. 

In Season 4, Episode 39 of Roofing Road Trips Heidi J. Ellsworth visits Brad Van Dam, VP of sales for MTL Holdings, the parent company of Metal-Era and Hickman Edge Systems. The two talk about restoring the Hickman Edge Systems brand and their new price relief program that was created to better support contractors. 

“A little over a year ago, when we acquired Hickman Edge Systems  we made a commitment to restore the Hickman Edge Systems brand,” says Brad. “It’s been around for 75 years, the oldest edge metal company in the United States, and the brand meant a lot to a lot of people. So we chose to bring that brand back, restore the independent reps, that model, and bring that back to fruition.” 

Part of bringing back the brand is committing to their new price relief program. The new program reduces prices up to 12% on five of their contractor-friendly products in their fascia and coping lines.  

“We automated some manufacturing of products, and it reduced our costs to produce those parts. We took a huge increase from another raw material supplier on steel and aluminum and chose not to pass that on to our customers,” says Brad. “In our experience, the last two years really has taught us that we've got to find ways to work together with folks.”  

The price relief program is an incredible initiative that shows how important it is for the industry to work together for success. How quickly the industry recovers from the labor shortage, price increases and supply chain issues are a matter of how well the industry will stick together. As Brad says, it is all about finding a way to look at the big picture and contribute accordingly. 

“You have choices to make. You can put those additional funds in your pocket, you can reinvest it, you can look at different ways to do it, but in our experience, the last two years really has taught us that we've got to find ways to work together with folks,” says Brad.  “We decided to invest, and become faster and better at what we do, let's go ahead and take that savings, and that investment, and share that back with our customer.” 

Listen to the podcast to learn more about the new price relief program and about Metal-Era and Hickman Edge Systems are working to help their customers. 

Learn more about Hickman Edge Systems in their RoofersCoffeeShop® Directory or visit www.hickmanedgesystems.com  

About Cass  

Cass works as a reporter/writer for RoofersCoffeeShop, AskARoofer and MetalCoffeeShop. When she isn’t writing about roofs, she is putting her Master degree to work writing about movies and dancing with her plants.