Messco Building Supply, an American residential and commercial building materials distributor, began its life in 2009. The company was founded by Derek Messing, a lifelong veteran of the building industry whose father previously owned Forest Building Supply in Queens, New York. Messing’s family connection was a crucial entry point into the space for him at first, but Messco became its own endeavor.
Throughout the 15-plus years it has been active, Messco has grown from a single location with only four people to sporting five locations and as many as 80 individuals in its workforce, with plans to expand to even more locations. Derek Messing’s son Jack has also become involved as a sales associate, making it a true family business.
Sales Manager Brady Mohart, who has been with the company since 2020, says that clients can sometimes fall into the assumption that, because the business is heavily involved with lumber in its daily operations, it is only a seller of it and associated products like drywall. This is not true, he says, because the company provides a full service, willing and able to engage in other building areas including trim, siding, decking, railing, roofing, stonework, and more.
To that end, Messco hopes to shake off its label as just a lumberyard. The company can assist a wide variety of customers with any project inside or outside a home. Vice President Dale Hammond says that the business is capable of doing jobs that range from $2,500 pressure decking projects to commercial jobs in the range of $3 million to $5 million, which shows its versatility and commitment to customer satisfaction.
The decade so far has seen Messco make great strides in its desire to expand operations ever further across the Tri-State area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut. In 2020, the company opened a new gypsum yard site in Danbury, Connecticut; around four years later, it opened another gypsum yard in Manchester, Connecticut, along with a new accounting office and 40,000 square feet of warehouse space. Hammond says that the move to open a new branch in Connecticut in 2024 was spurred on by an offer from CertainTeed, a Pennsylvania-based building product distributor, for an exclusive dealership to sell acoustic ceiling tile products in the state.
These moves across the state of Connecticut have been paralleled by similar growth in the company’s home state of New York. Last year, Messco established its commercial door division store in the village of Montgomery, building from its original Walden location. The company has expanded its home base quite a bit, a branch that Hammond says does everything from framing and lumber to gypsum, drywall, roofing, and siding. “Anything the building industry offers, we can do,” he says, and the company has made sure that the same is true of all its yards and locations.
Along with new locations, the company has also been inviting new faces to its workforce, both in 2024 and 2025. Crucially, this talent influx has brought a lot of younger workers, individuals in their 20s and 30s. Mohart says that, generally, it is easier for younger people to adapt to the new technologies and programs available in the building industry today, which is a huge boon for Messco’s operations.
On the flip side, Messco also welcomes industry veterans with decades of experience, who help the next generation develop their sales skills and learn the ins and outs of the field. A breadth of experience levels throughout the team has helped the company remain nimble while its operations benefit from the decades of experience and knowledge it carries within its workforce.
Among its many positive aspects, Hammond says that the biggest distinguishing feature of Messco in the building industry is its approach to service. “There’s still a lot of personal touch with us.” He says that this distinction sets the company apart from much of the competition who may be unwilling or unable to go the extra mile the way a business like Messco can. At Messco, it is easy for customers to get in touch with a real person as opposed to being sent to an automated voice or a phone tree, and this is the same for the sales force. Across all the company’s locations, salespeople have their own customers and have fostered enduring personal relationships with them, which has allowed for repeat business and an ever-renewing sense of confidence in what the company can do.
Mohart says that sometimes, when a business reaches a certain corporate level, the interpersonal connections can drop off, especially when decisions about projects or goods have to be run up the chain before a decision can be made. Since everything at Messco is accomplished in-house, decisions can be made faster and clients can often get answers the same day. What is more, as a family-owned business, there is no cadre of voices gumming up the works and weighing down every decision in bureaucracy. Clients have historically responded to this direct, swift approach and appreciate that a human voice can be reached any time of day for service or support.
Hammond tells us that 2025 was a comparatively stagnant year for both Messco and the broader building industry due to a lack of consistency in projects and customer expectations, owing largely to the higher interest rates seen throughout the year. This, coupled with the ongoing tariffs imposed by the United States, continues to affect myriad industries that rely on importing and exporting goods internationally as part of their regular operations. Thankfully, Messco itself is still doing well all things considered, and is anticipating a newer push for construction—especially on the commercial end—that will likely make a significant difference in fortunes by early 2026.
As the new year begins, Messco has big plans to expand throughout the New England area with even more new locations, Hammond shares. With its recent dealership offer in Connecticut, the hope is to push the business further into New England and potentially nab exclusive dealerships in that state as well.
Along the way, the company will continue to employ the practices that have brought it such success so far: family values, exemplary customer service, and a rich knowledge base. “We will take advantage of having great employees and see where the economy goes,” Hammond says. Although the economy can be unpredictable, Messco’s rock-steady commitment to customer satisfaction, delivered by its knowledgeable and hungry employees, will surely keep it coming out on top for a long time to come.
