History of W. P. Hickman, the Leader in Commercial Roof Edging Since 1945
Founded in 1945 and headquartered in Asheville since 1975, the family owned and operated W.P.Hickman Company is the premier American manufacturer of metal roof edging for commercial buildings. Hickman’s aesthetically pleasing coping, fascia and roof edge accessories offer customers long term protection against wind and water infiltration.
The W.P.Hickman Company began its corporate existence as a residential roofing contractor in September, 1945 in Birmingham, Michigan when founder W.P.(Bill) Hickman developed an effective new way to protect shingles. The Company was started with just $600 in cash, and the first “shop” was the garage adjoining the Hickman family home.
In the 1950's, the Company branched out to include commercial roofing and, in 1960, Bill Hickman designed and patented the Safeguard® Roof Edge System. This product was the first edge “system”, ie. a product consisting of multiple, interacting components, and it launched an industry. The Safeguard business rapidly grew as the roofing industry realized that the new design addressed a number of leakage issues. By the end of the decade the Company had ceased all roofing work in order to focus exclusively on the design and manufacture of high quality aluminum and steel roof edge systems.
In 1967 John B. Hickman, son of the founder, joined the Company. Two years later, in 1969, the W.P.Hickman Company became a second generation family company when John succeeded his father as president. Under John’s leadership the Company continued to grow. A nationwide sales network was developed, new edge products were introduced and, by 1975, the Company needed further manufacturing capacity to meet growing demand. Seeking a favorable business climate closer to its growing southeastern markets, John Hickman relocated the Company to its present location in the beautiful mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, and constructed a 40,000 square foot manufacturing facility.
Throughout the ‘80s, ‘90s and into the 21st century the Company continued to develop innovative roof edge products, eventually being awarded over 20 patents. The Company expanded from its core market - schools and educational facilities - into commercial, government and medical industry sectors. Ever increasing customer demands and the rise in business volume were addressed by the Company-wide adoption of “lean” manufacturing, based upon the Toyota Production System, in 2001. The Company also led the way in developing industry standards for roof edges which were subsequently adopted by American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and integrated into the International Building Code. The importance of these standards has unfortunately been validated by the hurricane events of the past few years.
In 2004 W.P.Hickman became a third generation family owned and led company when Scott Hickman (grandson of the founder and nephew of John Hickman) and Jeff Imes (John Hickman’s son-in-law) succeeded John as CEO and COO, respectively. John Hickman remains involved with the Company in his capacity as chairman and continues to be active on a number of industry committees.
While the W.P.Hickman Co. enjoys a strong brand image in the architectural and contractor communities, it has always understood that the primary strength of the Company lies in the collective skill set and experience of its employees. For its strategy to succeed, the Company must offer competitive products of consistently high quality, outstanding customer service and ever decreasing leadtimes. This is simply impossible without a seasoned and committed employee team. In recognition of this Bill Hickman and, subsequently, John Hickman made employee development and satisfaction a top priority. A tangible example of the benefit of this approach is that the average employee has been with W.P.Hickman for over 10 years, while the Company has had a voluntary turnover rate of less than 2% per year.
Similarly, the current management team believes that focusing on and listening to employees is both critical to the Company’s success and completely consistent with the concept of a family owned and managed enterprise. In fact, the Values statement for the Company was recently modified to include the following:
“Family. As a family owned company, we place particular emphasis on family values and consider our employees to be an extended family. Our commitment to this family includes respect, security, caring and communication.”
Armed with this philosophy and an outstanding group of employees, the W.P.Hickman Company is well positioned to take on the challenges of being an American manufacturer in the new millennium.