Greater Reading Chamber Commerce Quarterly Summer 2017 - 11

GreaterReadingChamber.org

Dave Owens, President -
Overhead Door of Reading, Lancaster,
Chester and Delaware Counties

Joe Finkey,
Commercial Sales Manager -
Martin's Flooring

We have seen a marked increase in activity, particularly in the
industrial sector. The door business is one that's always in demand
to sustain operations; and when business increases, facilities
managers turn to us for ways to improve operational efficiency
while reducing the cost of maintenance and related down time.
We provide ADA compliant door operators, high speed fabric
and metal doors, insect barrier/ventilating doors, rolling and
sliding fire doors, operable walls and accordion partitions, loading
dock equipment, and industrial hollow metal doors and frames.
Specialized controls, high speed doors and upgraded dock and
facility protection systems all contribute to operational efficiency
to optimize our managed growth strategy.

We have seen increases in both residential and commercial work in
the Greater Berks area this year. Especially small businesses, churches,
health care facilities, and senior living. Clients are excited about
upgrading their homes and facilities. Commercially they are picking
materials with longer life cycles and lower maintenance costs; such
as, carpet tiles, luxury vinyl tile and planks, and porcelain tile.

We've grown here, too. In recent years, our industry has made
major improvements in the customization of a home. Carriage
house style doors are very popular and much more affordable now.
Midcentury modern styles are very popular as well- designs that
match the homes built in the 1950's and 1960's that millennials
are now buying and renovating. The days of the bland white, raised
panel one-style-fits-all doors are gone. We even have a garage door
that appears to be a wall of glass. And, another growing residential
market segment has been retractable awnings by Sunsetter, an
industry leader nationally, and Perfecta, a local company that
specializes in custom applications.

For us, the new home building market has been steady, but not
near pre-recession levels. The land development process is so long
and costly that a lot of clients are renovating their existing homes
and buildings instead. The estimating and design stage of projects
has been record high busy so we are hopeful that comes to fruition
throughout the rest of this year and next.

It hasn't affected our growth, but it sure is a challenge. Field work
in our business is fascinating because we're needed everywhere.
No day is the same, and our techs get to see a lot of different
businesses and work on a wide variety of products while solving
problems for customers. Our people love it because they're always
learning something new and growing. It's just a matter of finding
people with the basic mechanical aptitude and a willingness to
learn. Then, they're hooked for life.

Yes, it has created more of a backlog on the Operations side. Since
the opening of our Wyomissing store in 2013, we have seen record
growth year over year. It's been a challenge to keep up with it on
the labor side. We hire apprentices with a good work history and
attitude and train them our way. Within a year or two, they are
ready to begin installing small jobs on their own. Any given day we
have over 100 installers working in Central PA in homes and jobsites.

Sure. We've been conscious of the need to recycle for a long time.
We remove a lot of metal when we replace doors and dock levelers.
There's literally tons of steel and aluminum that we contribute to
sustainability in any given month.

We collect used carpet cushion and bale it in a compactor. Carpenter
Company uses it as recycled content in their products. Cardboard
gets segregated and collected for shredding and re-use as animal
bedding by a local Amish farm business. Old carpet is staged in a
shed at our Denver location and is open to the public to stop by and
take for re-use. Many local farmers use it in their produce fields and
greenhouses to keep weeds down in aisles. Some just use it in barns
or garages as temporary flooring. Ceramic tile debris has been used
as clean fill for excavating. Wood scrap and debris has been used
in outdoor furnaces as fuel. Through these efforts, we were able to
cut our disposal costs in half.

Absolutely. We have three branches in South Central Pennsylvania,
in Berks, Lancaster and Chester/Delaware Counties, so we can
partner with general contractors and facilities managers alike to
deliver projects of all sizes on time with highly efficient products
that were unavailable just a few years ago.

The technology we use on the estimating and sales end allows us to
give the client a clear expectation of what the project will cost and
look like. The Project Managers then communicate regularly with
the client through phone, email, and on-site to make sure those
expectations are met and exceeded. Our business is built upon the
hard work and skill of our installers. Their friendliness and skill is
really the backbone of the company.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Greater Reading Chamber Commerce Quarterly Summer 2017
