Metal Industry Insights From a Well-versed Pro

Metal Roof Specialties' Jerry Iselin speaks about his decades long journey in the metal industry.

Editor's note: the following is a conversation between Metal Roof Specialties' President Jerry Iselin, and RoofersCoffeeShop® President Heidi Ellsworth. You can watch the interview or read the transcript below.

Heidi Ellsworth: Hello, and welcome to day two of barns. And we are live. We are in the MetalCoffeeShop booth sound stage sponsored by New Tech Machinery. Just want to put that out there. This is our first interview of the day and I am so excited to have Jerry Iselin here with us for the first video of the second day. Jerry is one of our Metal Coffee Shop influencers. He also just retired from Metal Roof Specialties out of Washington, right?

Jerry Iselin: Yep.

Heidi Ellsworth: I'm going to let you... And I just did a little bit, but you introduce yourself, tell everybody a little bit about you and your past company.

Jerry Iselin: I started in this industry in 1976, working for a manufacturer for about 16 years. And then in 1992, I decided to start my own contracting business because at that time there were so few people doing residential metal roofing that it seemed like a great opportunity. I was tired of the corporate life. So I did that. In 1992, I started a company, we did primarily residential roofing. We did that until 2013. And when the economy was challenging, we were having a hard time getting contractors and installers, so we became a sole distributor of metal building products. Roofing, siding, fencing, all types of things in the metal roofing, siding industry, metal building industry. We're also Metal Building Manufacturer's, distributor. So that's what we've done. Metalcon has been a huge part of my life. I've been coming here for about 20 years. Most of those years I was actually doing training sessions.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes, that's what we were just talking about.

Jerry Iselin: Administration for the manufacturers, helping people understand how to install. And that's been really a big part of my background is helping people with installation and doing training. I do now that I'm semi-retired, Heidi.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes, semi.

Jerry Iselin: Doing consulting for people for expert witness and things of that nature as well.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yeah. And we're talking about training, and-

Jerry Iselin: Training, yeah, that is a passion for me. There's a number of videos that I did on the Metal Roofing Alliance website that will help people too, if they're part of that. They can see those training sessions. They were really, really good, and really fun, really interactive.

Heidi Ellsworth: I'm really excited that you are an influencer on Metal Coffee Shop because we need your wisdom. We want to share that. You've been answering some questions, you've been helping us with some articles. You're sharing that. What's been your experience and what do you think of the questions? What do we need to be doing different, Jerry?

Jerry Iselin: No, I think you're doing great. And seeing a little bit of the panel yesterday, the discussion about installers and getting people involved in this industry as installers is really important. It is our Achilles' heel. Everybody loves metal. Metal is a wonderful product. I know you have a lot of other products that you do through your organization, but I've been focused on metal all my life. There is nothing bad about it. The only drawback is maybe it's on the higher price end of things.

Heidi Ellsworth: But it lasts longer, too.

Jerry Iselin: It lasts a long time, it's beautiful, it's fire resistant, it's sustainable. Everything about our environment is favorable with metal. Our biggest problem, back when the Metal Roofing Alliance started, was getting people aware. And I think you heard back then, Metal's market share was about three and a half percent. Right now they're in the teens.

Heidi Ellsworth: I heard 17.

Jerry Iselin: And that doesn't surprise me. And I know that's going to continue to grow. Those that want to get involved in it, know that you're in a growing industry as opposed to maybe a dying industry. Metal in roofing is going to grow, hands down. It's going to get pieces of everybody else's pie.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes, it is.

Jerry Iselin: What our challenge is, is exposure, for homeowners to understand. And now they're there.

Heidi Ellsworth: The Metal Roofing Alliance has done a great job of that.

Jerry Iselin: An incredible job, and they are really helping people appreciate it. I remember when I first started, people thought metal was only for barns or a mountain cabin. And one of my favorite lines was "well, it was good enough for Bill Gates' house. So what do you think?" Because it was. Bill Gates put it on his. Back in the day, the most expensive new house in America, $55 million, had a metal roof on it. And it changed people's attitude. They go "oh, really?" So now they're seeing it and it is a product of choice for high end homes. And it's a product of choice for a more economical home that just needs a good, long life roof for maybe an elderly owner who doesn't want to fool with it anymore.

Heidi Ellsworth: Right, exactly.

Jerry Iselin: And the energy efficiencies are incredible.

Heidi Ellsworth: And what's going on with solar? Solar is going to be the game changer, I really think. Because there's nothing better under a solar rate than a metal roof.

Jerry Iselin: I totally agree. It is the only roof product that will outlive the solar system. Even the solar guys say "make sure you get that type of roof if you're going to put a solar system on because of life expectancy."

Heidi Ellsworth: I grew up under a metal roof. My dad was a builder, built a log house with a red tin roof, and I think it was tin, actually.

Jerry Iselin: People still call it tin. We smile when they do, but that's okay. It's a metal roof. Whatever material, right.

Heidi Ellsworth: It was a good one. Talk a little bit more about... I know you're doing some consulting. You're going to be doing some training, and we would be totally remiss if we didn't mention Haley.

Jerry Iselin: Oh, my daughter Haley, yeah.

Heidi Ellsworth: Yes, let's talk about Haley first.

Jerry Iselin: Haley's now been with me for 17 years. When she graduated from the University of Washington, she came on board. Initially I thought that I wanted her to go get experience somewhere else with some other companies just to see what other people are like. And actually, one of my dear friends here, Dick Bus from ATAS said "Jerry, you're nuts. Bring her into your..." If you know Dick, he's got a big part of his family as part of their business. And another dear friend of mine also said the same thing. So Haley came in, she started at the ground floor. She was in sales, she was climbing on roofs, she was estimating. When the turndown came, she actually went in and did all of our accounting for us, and marketing. She has a full spectrum understanding of our business, it's in great hands. And she was an award winner here at Metalcon a number of years ago. She's a woman in the trades, right?

Heidi Ellsworth: She's amazing. A woman in roofing. And much more, a woman in metal.

Jerry Iselin: She's very good at what she does, and she really loves our industry. Her house that we remodeled a number of years ago has got a metal roof. It has a metal fireplace enclosure. It has metal around the kitchen cabinets. It's got metal everywhere.

Heidi Ellsworth: I love it, that is so cool. For anybody who is out in the Pacific Northwest or Alaska... You do a lot of work in Alaska, right?

Jerry Iselin: We do a lot of work in Alaska, yes we do.

Heidi Ellsworth: So you want to be aware of Metal Roof Specialties because they can get you the roofing, they can get you the training, they can help you do what everybody needs, right?

Jerry Iselin: Yeah, and our customer base is certainly some of the larger metal roof contractors in the area, but also probably more of our customer base is consumers. So we work with consumers to help them get that little job done, whether it be a dog house or a chicken coop, or a house, a roof for their house or their garage or whatever. There's a lot of people that are very comfortable with that type of roof, and with the lack of installers, lead times are long, prices are relatively high. So a lot of people want to do it themselves. And that's a big part of our business. We do it every day.

Heidi Ellsworth: That's amazing. That's so cool. And we do need to give a shout out to Guardian.

Jerry Iselin: Oh, absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth: Because they introduced us.

Jerry Iselin: Yes, they did.

Heidi Ellsworth: Lori and Matt, we love you guys.

Jerry Iselin: Yes, absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth: Guardian Roofing, they're in the art club, too.

Jerry Iselin: I can't imagine that we missed meeting you with our relationship with them.

Heidi Ellsworth: We have you on Metal Coffee Shop. Yeah. You're going to be consulting. Jerry has a full directory on there and we're going to be adding to that as he does all these things. And we're going to be doing more, a lot more on Metal Coffee Shop together, right?

Jerry Iselin: Absolutely.

Heidi Ellsworth: Love it. Thank you so much for being here.

Jerry Iselin: It was great being here. I'm looking forward to getting down to the show and seeing my old friends from over the years.

Heidi Ellsworth: There's a bunch of them right down there.

Jerry Iselin: It's going to be a full day.

Heidi Ellsworth: Well, thank you for being a metal influencer and enjoy your day at Metalcon.

Jerry Iselin: Thanks Heidi.

Heidi Ellsworth: Okay, thank you.

Jerry Iselin: Enjoy.

Heidi Ellsworth: Thank you all for watching. We're going to be back. We've got a lot of interviews today. Some really cool stuff, so hang in there and watch for those notifications.

Learn more about Metal Roof Specialties in their directory or visit www.metalroofspecialties.com.