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Local roofing company stays on top of expansion
The Valley company has expanded into Columbus, Dayton and as far south as Florida.
LIBERTY — Simply consulting in the construction and commercial roofing industry wasn’t enough for Brad Yocum, so he started VEC Systems.
Just seven years later, the commercial roofing company has expanded so fast that it has won three Regional Chamber growth awards.
It employs 60 at its local office and up to 100 when crews are on the job during the summer.
With consulting, Yocum said, “You wrote the specs, someone else came in and performed it, built it, and then closed out the job.”
He was interested in having more control, and getting involved in installation seemed a good way to do that.
So, in 2001, he, Kevin Ames and Rich Yocum joined with Rex Ferry, owner of Valley Electrical Consolidated, to create VEC Systems, using Valley Electrical resources. VEC Systems does roofing work for schools, hospitals and municipal projects, among others.
Ames, a longtime friend of Brad Yocum’s, had been vice president of sales at Valley Electrical. He is vice president and secretary of VEC Systems. Rich Yocum, Brad’s cousin, is vice president of operations.
Locating VEC Systems within the Valley Electrical offices on Tibbetts-Wick Road gave the fledgling company access to a well-established administrative staff, customer base and people experienced in working with public projects.
It was a “huge help,” said Brad Yocum, president of VEC Systems. In 2006, he bought out Ferry in 2006 and moved VEC to its current Belmont Avenue location.
“We had a five-year plan,” Yocum said. “That was kind of always the goal, to start off being part of that group originally, then to branch off on our own.”
They also decided to branch out in other ways.
“The first area we looked at to diversify a little bit was Columbus,” Yocum said. “The season’s a little longer the farther south we go. Even just the three-hour trip to Columbus — it’s amazing the difference in weather that they have during the winter months, versus what we have here.”
Yocum opened a Columbus office in 2003. About 30 project management, estimating and field personnel work out of that location. He started there because of the market.
“It’s a growing economy,” Yocum said. “Even now, there’s a lot of new construction going on.”
Also, he was familiar with some of the manufacturers they could work with in that area.
The growth didn’t stop in Columbus, though. Three years ago, the company received a license to do work in Florida and formed a partnership with an engineering group there.
“It was originally mostly to support our lack of being able to do work in winter,” Yocum said.
And the timing was right: Several hurricanes had hit Florida and there was a need for construction companies to help with rebuilding.
In 2006, they opened a Canton office. Thirteen employees perform estimating and project management work from that location.
The administrative aspects of the business, such as payroll and billing, are handled in the Liberty office.
The company has no plans to stop expanding, Yocum said.
“We’ve recently started branching off into the Dayton area from our Columbus office,” he said.
They’re also looking to further expand in the southern market. They are looking into locations in Georgia and North and South Carolina, Yocum said.
However, he noted, they need to be conscious of the fact that the company has experienced rapid growth.
“Right now, with the growth that we’ve had, we’re trying to just really get a good grasp on what we have in front of us already,” he said.
Annual sales were just under $10 million in 2007. Yocum projects 2008 sales to be in the $10 million range.
“We have quite a bit on the books already for 2008, so we’re looking for a real good year,” he said.