Sherriff Goslin Roofing marked its 120th anniversary this year, a tremendous milestone for the Battle Creek, Michigan-based firm that prides itself on craftsmanship, integrity, and family values.
Sherriff Goslin Roofing provides both residential and commercial roofing while offering superlative service regardless of a project’s size. The company, which also installs windows, gutters, and siding, has been family-owned throughout its lengthy history.
“We go back a long way. I’m currently the fourth generation,” says President and Chairman of the Board, Steve Ticknor, who is the great-great grandson of co-founder Fred Sherriff.
Serving homeowners
Sherriff Goslin Roofing has 17 branches in total, situated across Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana. All branches are company-owned and mutually supportive; if one branch requires assistance on a project, other branches are happy to step in. And while the team does work on commercial projects, the focus is on “residential reroofing on existing homes,” explains Executive Vice President, Craig Lockerbie.
“Our bread and butter is your average homeowner in the small town of Anywhere, USA,” agrees Ticknor. “We want to keep them happy and have them tell their friends and neighbors about us.”
The company’s primary focus is residential reroofing and commercial flat roofing. Its services include roof repairs and replacement, storm damage restoration, and installing shingles and specialty roofs. Among its ancillary services are gutter, window, and siding installation—again, largely for existing structures.
Standout products
At present, the company can handle almost any type of roofing project, including specialty assignments involving metal, copper, or even ‘green’ roofs. Metal roofs are highly durable, stand up to brutal weather conditions, and are aesthetically pleasing. Lockerbie points out that metal roofing “is becoming a bigger part of the business,” due to increased customer demand.
A green roof, meanwhile, features a layer of live vegetation, be it shrubs, flowers, plants, or even trees, installed on a flat roof surface. Rooftop flora enhances insulation, resulting in more energy-efficient buildings, and absorbs rainwater, reducing the flow of runoff into sewers. Green roofs can also offer office workers a tranquil spot to unwind while helping building owners and developers achieve LEED certification. The growing popularity of green roofs “has a lot to do with LEED building; you get credit points for installing a green roof,” Lockerbie explains.
The team has also installed copper roofing, including a recent project involving a copper roof on a Greek Orthodox church.
In addition to outstanding service, Sherriff Goslin stands out with the patented Art-Loc, a specialty shingle originally developed in the 1920s by Bert Goslin. Unlike traditional shingles, these shingles interlock, forming a visually striking and structurally sound diamond-shaped pattern. Initially used to cover cedar shingles at a time when sealant strips were not common, Art-Loc has been an enduring success.
This product “is really what propelled us as a company at that time,” Lockerbie shares. “We still install thousands of squares each year of this product in the Midwest.”
In fact, almost all the shingles used by Sherriff Goslin are manufactured by the Atlas Roofing Corporation of Atlanta, Georgia. “They make Art-Loc for us. We’re the only ones who can sell it,” says Ticknor.
The biggest asset: people
The company’s family ownership model has provided consistency throughout the many decades and serves as a template for workplace loyalty. All told, managers of the 17 branches have a collective 454 years of service, a testament to the dedication and commitment that gives Sherriff Goslin a competitive edge. “We think loyalty is a big deal,” says Ticknor, citing cases where two generations of the same family work for the company.
“One of our biggest assets is the people that work here,” echoes Lockerbie. “We’re still here because of them. That’s very important to us.”
Sherriff Goslin employs between 150 and 180 staff on a seasonal basis as, for obvious reasons, work slows down in wintertime when snow blankets the Midwest. The team self-performs some tasks while subcontracting out other roofing duties, and in terms of new hires, the firm prefers “somebody willing to do whatever the job takes. Somebody not afraid of heights, obviously—you spent a lot of time going up and down a ladder—and somebody that really cares about servicing the customer,” says Lockerbie.
Safety and quality above all
To support its people, the company offers comprehensive employee and safety training. Two full-time safety monitors—who happen to be father and son—conduct safety training and perform on-site inspections, ensuring that employees are up to date with their training, keeping track of new Occupational Safety and Health Administration requirements, and constantly visiting jobsites.
And the Sherriff Goslin team is equally devoted to quality and customer care. Each roofing project begins with a free, thorough inspection. If clients wish to go forward, they are assigned a specific project manager who guides them through the process and keeps them updated on the progress of the work. Project managers are immersed in all aspects of an assignment from start to finish. Jobsites are tidied after work is completed, and clients can contact the company if any post-construction problems arise.
High standards, of course, are imperative given the nature of Sherriff Goslin’s business. “When you sell a roof, you’re selling something that you look at every day,” says Ticknor. A poorly done roof will be obvious to anybody driving by. Given this, it is essential that the work is done correctly and that all projects go according to plan, and this attitude is reflected in the company’s core values: safety, integrity, and quality.
A rich history
Sherriff Goslin Roofing traces its roots to 1906—a time when airplanes were a new innovation and automobiles were still rare. That year, Fred Sherriff organized the Battle Creek Roofing and Manufacturing Company. In 1910, he partnered with B.G. ‘Bert’ Goslin, and Sherriff Goslin Roofing was born. In the early years, employees were known to travel to jobsites by bicycle or train.
At one time, the company had branches as far afield as Illinois and even Florida, but over the decades, these were consolidated to streamline operations, as having to drive hours for projects was not a recipe for profitability, says Lockerbie. Regardless of these structural changes, the presence of the Sherriff and Goslin families has remained a constant, and the two families currently share majority ownership.
Churches, along with barns, offices, and other structures, represent the commercial side of the company’s business. High-profile projects within this segment include the Gilmore Car Museum, a huge complex featuring hundreds of vintage vehicles in multiple buildings spread over dozens of acres in Hickory Corners, Michigan. Among other tasks, Sherriff Goslin installed metal roofing and Art-Loc shingles on the museum’s facilities. “It’s a pretty big project that we continue to work. They keep adding buildings there,” says Lockerbie.
Success in the modern era
While Ticknor is certainly proud of the team’s achievements in the commercial sector, the company’s residential work remains paramount. “The big, fancy projects are really cool, but really our mainstay is dealing with individual homeowners, whether a 1,200-square-foot Cape Cod or a $1 million home. It’s about dealing with that individual person, because their home is [probably their] largest investment,” he notes. “No matter how big or small their home is, they’re trusting us to take care of them.”
“I’m seeing a wide variety of work. It’s not just residential; it’s round barns, country clubs, apartment complexes, huge condo complexes,” says Vice President of Marketing Cindy Goodison. Goodison takes the lead in the area of company promotion and uses a licensed drone pilot to get aerial shots of completed roofing projects. Such footage offers a vivid demonstration on how the firm blends old-fashioned craftsmanship with cutting-edge technology.
Goodison explains that advertising by the individual branches is more localized. Branches are better suited to respond to local conditions—whether it be a storm or strong economic growth in a community—and use print or television to spotlight their services. “Branches have the latitude to do what they see fit at a branch level,” she says. “They’re the boots on the ground. They know their competitors. If the competition turns up the heat, they know it’s time to start making noise in their areas.”
Going forward, the company plans to focus on enhancing its existing service offerings and continuing to hit high benchmarks in terms of quality, safety, workplace loyalty, and customer support.
“We’d like to be at 125 years in business,” Ticknor says of the five-year forecast for the company, adding that he is thankful for the company’s longevity. “We’ve made it to 120. We don’t take that for granted at all.”
