IB Beginning & Now

In 1977, my wife and I decided we were going to venture into importing this single-ply roofing material from Germany. By early '78, we were well into it, but we couldn't sell it. People just said, "this is just too expensive." They were used to the asphalt and all the hot roof-type things, and they just wouldn't buy it. So we decided to start a little roofing company of our own, and it was very, very successful and people wanted what we were selling as a consumer.

And then our competition in the roofing business started coming to us saying, "where can I buy this stuff?" I said, "well, I get it from Germany, and here's the name of the company. The only requirement is you got to buy a boatload at a time." "Oh, no. I just won a little bit," was usually the response that we got. So they said, "could I buy some from you?" And that started our little business.