Solar Spotlight: Supplying everything above the roof line — including PV

ABC Supply is a prolific distributor in the North American roofing market and has expanded into solar component distribution as well. James Mason, VP of renewable energy at ABC Supply, is on this episode of Solar Spotlight to discuss the company’s history, motivations for entering the PV market and its ambition to reshape how solar contractors are supplied with solar hardware.

A written portion of this podcast is below but be sure to listen to the full episode on your preferred podcast service.

Contractor’s Corner by Solar Power World · Solar Spotlight: Supplying everything above the roof line — including PV

SPW: Can you provide an overview of who ABC Supply is?

James Mason: ABC supply is North America’s largest wholesale distributor of select exterior and interior building products. ABC was founded in 1982 by Ken Hendricks and Diane Hendricks, and it’s important to note that Ken was a third-generation roofer. He started this company to support the roofing contractor business, something that’s in his blood, something that he understands, and ABC’s sole focus was to help remove the friction and make it easy for roofing contractors to grow their business.

ABC Supply has a long history in the roofing industry. How does that experience benefit solar contractors?

We have a vast distribution channel, a national footprint, connections with national vendor or manufacturing partners, and we’ve helped contractors grow and scale their businesses for the last 40+ years. And we’re going to be able to bring a lot of those lessons learned and best practices to help solar contractors do the same.

How is ABC Supply redefining renewable energy distribution?

As the renewable segment is expanding and getting more into the mainstream, there’s a lot of obstacles and hurdles as this market emerges. And one of the things that we want to do as we redefine energy distribution is making it easy. One of the things that helps is single-source supplying, and what I mean by that is when you’re installing solar, for the most part, you’re already putting it on top of an existing roof, and most likely, that’s a roof that ABC has probably distributed. So, single source supplying is not only now can you get your roofing but you can get your solar panels, you can get your racking, you can get your inverters, your batteries, your BOS, all of those things from one location.

What sets ABC Supply apart from other distribution companies in the industry?

Well, it’s going to be our history and how we were built. Our founder started this company to support his roofing contractor business. Back in the day, he was one of the largest roofing contractors in the nation, and he started the roofing distribution side to help support his main business, because it didn’t exist in a way the roofer needed to be supported. And as he redefined that process, he got pretty good at it and focused on the distribution portion of it to help grow all the other roofing contractors. What makes us different is we were set up to support contractors, to remove friction and to make it easy for them to do their business — and not only do business, to grow and to scale their business.

So, you’ve covered the services that ABC offers. But what materials do you have that can assist contractors with building their product knowledge and learning the latest installation techniques?

We partner with the top manufacturers, not only in exterior building products, but also in the renewables or the solar segments. It’s not uncommon for us to host training events at our branches, at hotels or conference centers, where we bring our vendors together with the latest information; and we have our training and education seminars there; there are the webinars that we do on a monthly or quarterly basis. We really try to keep not only our associates but also our customers that are contractors informed of the latest, best practices, and making sure that the manufacturers have a communication platform where they can connect with the customer. They learn the latest install techniques that are out there. That’s just one of the benefits you get by being a customer of ABC Supply.

This podcast is sponsored by ABC Supply