// ON THE RECORD
The Garland Company, Inc.
Employee-owned manufacturer and distributor of high-performance commercial roofing, waterproofing, and building envelope systems, sold and serviced through a field network of local building envelope representatives who provide assessments, specifications, and on-site project management. Garland Canada Inc. is the Canadian operating subsidiary.
📍 Cleveland, Ohio, USAEst. 1895✓ 100% first-party verified
// CLIPS FROM The Garland Company, Inc.
“i was just talking to one of my roofing contractors yesterday”
“i'm always telling people your roofing today is the same as the roads”
“i personally don't feel that single plies work well in our climate”
“the company became 100 employee-owned”
“you drive through burnside tons of metal roofs that are getting old and rusty”
“and you when you're 50 60 feet up and it's november the wind's blowing”
“but ultimately we thought hey if you don't take any risk in life”
// LESSONS FROM The Garland Company, Inc.
A free conditions assessment (lifecycle report + core-cut lab test) sells the capital programme without pitching product first — it builds trust and surfaces the real scope before numbers land.
In Atlantic Canada's extreme freeze-thaw climate, band-aid leak repairs on end-of-life roofs create expectation liability; committing to a timeline ('good for 3-4 years') that winter then breaks is worse than refusing the repair.
Building capital approvals at organizations with remote head offices take 3–6 months of internal lead time; starting the assessment process six months before the construction window is the practical minimum.
A full-service manufacturer model — assessment, spec-writing, procurement, site QA, warranty — removes the finger-pointing dynamic: one party absorbs all liability regardless of whether the failure is manufacturing, installation, or design.
Performance-based specs (no proprietary product names) are the only defensible route in public tendering; they still protect quality by setting minimum performance thresholds that inferior products cannot meet.
Mandated 3-of-5-working-days site presence during installation, combined with weekly progress reports copied to the contractor, creates a transparent record that protects the owner, backs the warranty, and gives the contractor's PM visibility they lack on remote sites.
// ON THE RECORD WITH
Atlantic Canada roofing contractors
Supplies
Garland supplies materials and absorbs warranty liability; contractors install and are pre-qualified annually
Architecture49
Works with
Matthew references working with local architecture firms including Architecture 49 on spec collaboration after a multi-year trust-building process
Municipal and institutional building owners (Atlantic Canada)
Supplies
Public-sector buildings (schools, hospitals, municipal) are Garland's primary market due to long asset-hold periods and capital-budget structures
// KEY PEOPLE
// NOTABLE
Founded in 1895 as the Garland Refining Company (a Cleveland manufacturer/distributor of oils, greases and paints); renamed The Garland Company, Inc. in 1914.
SOURCE ▸Headquartered at 3800 East 91st Street in Cleveland, Ohio since 1919, where the company remains today.
SOURCE ▸Became 100% employee-owned through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) in 2004.
SOURCE ▸Garland Canada Inc. was established in 1987 (Canadian operating subsidiary); The Garland Company UK, Ltd. was formed in 2001 in Gloucester, England.
SOURCE ▸Operates through a network of over 200 local building envelope representatives across the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.
SOURCE ▸Garland Canada Inc. is a member of the Canadian Roofing Contractors Association (CRCA) and the New Brunswick Roofing Contractors Association (NBRCA), giving it formal standing in the Atlantic Canada roofing trade.
SOURCE ▸Building like this in Atlantic Canada?
Be a guest ▸