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Roofing Business Finds Home in WNY

Canadian running unit of German company draws on experience in location decision

March 03, 2010,

By David Robinson

 Richard Doornink has long had a soft spot for Buffalo.

And when the IBG Group of Companies was looking to set up a North American factory and distribution center for its Kemper System Production roofing products business, the Canadian businessman soon was touting the region to the German company’s executives.

It took some selling, though.

At first, Kemper officials, who wanted a North American manufacturing presence to be more competitive in the U. S. market and to tap into potential sales in Canada and South America, suggested locations in Florida.

“I said, ‘I don’t think so.’ I didn’t want to move to Florida,” said Doornink, the president of Kemper System.

The company also considered setting up its North American production in an old chemical plant in North Carolina.

“I said, ‘What about Buffalo?’ ” Doornink said Tuesday, as company officials officially began production at the company’s 45,000-square-foot plant in the North America Center business park in West Seneca.

But Doornink didn’t just have sentimental reasons for backing Buffalo.

Doornink had firsthand experience running a business in Buffalo.

Cantesco Corp., the welding chemical products company that Doornink sold to IBG last year, had operations in Buffalo, as well as in Mississauga, Ont., and Belgium.

“I’ve been coming here since the late ’80s. I’m a Bills season ticket holder. I love the city,” Doornink said.

Plus, Doornink was convinced that Buffalo had advantages over the other sites: Its work force and its location near other major U. S. markets that Kemper plans to target, from Boston and New York City to Chicago.

“In Florida, we’d be at the bottom of the map,” he said.

That was enough to convince IBG executives, who now believe the West Seneca site can put Kemper System in a position to handle all of the demands of its U. S. customers, while reducing delivery times.

“This increases our competitiveness,” said Ulrich Hocker, the IBG chairman.

Kemper now has 10 employees at its West Seneca facility, with plans to increase the work force by 25 to 30 people within the next 18 months.

The company, which has invested $3 million to equip the former Excel Precision factory, will make roofing, waterproofing and surfacing products in the facility.

“What we have in Erie County can not be replicated anyplace else, and it starts with location. Location, location, location,” Erie County Executive Chris Collins said. “You can’t replicate this work force, certainly not in Florida, certainly not in North Carolina.”

The company will assume the nine years in property tax breaks remaining on a payment- in-lieu-of-taxes agreement that was granted by the Erie County Industrial Development Agency in 2003, when Excel built the facility.

The West Seneca plant will handle production work for both the Kemper System and Cantesco product lines. The company’s sales and marketing functions will be handled out of an office in Closter, N. J.

The local factory includes a training center, where Kemper System officials expect to bring in about 20 architects and contractors each month to learn about the company’s roofing and waterproofing products.

Kemper Systems’ products are used for high-end specialty roofing applications.

Its products have been used on the Empire State Building, Madison Square Garden and High Museum of Art/Woodruff Art Center in Atlanta, among others.

drobinson@buffnews.com