Jeff Healam, co-owner of Tucson Rolling Shutters Inc., doesn't want you to think, "There goes the neighborhood" when you see rolling shutters on a home or business. He said their greatest value is in energy conservation.
Healam touches a panel lowering metal shutters that cover the soaring windows in the lobby of the company's corporate office. The temperature and light drop, immediately and dramatically.
Then he reopens the shutters and demonstrates the varied effects of motorized outdoor and indoor fabric shades.
The growing Tucson company, founded in 1979, is a long way from the garage-based operation it was when Healam and wife, Judy, bought it in 1985. It now has hangar-sized assembly plants at 500 E. 27th St. and 2660 E. Bilby Road.
The company's fabric-shade lines are made at the South Tucson facility, which also houses the company's business offices. The rolling-metal-shutters assembly and powder painting for all product lines are done at the newer Bilby plant.
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Many of the components they use are from manufacturers in Europe, where rolling metal shutters have long been commonplace.
Healam said he switched to a Chinese manufacturer of the aluminum frames used on metal shutters and fabric shades after his old California supplier failed.
The company does retail sales, including installation, all over Southern Arizona, and has a retail store at 7356 N. Oracle Road. The wholesale side is made up of a network of 125 dealers throughout the rest of the United States, Canada, Mexico and Panama.
The company started out strictly doing rolling metal exterior shutters, but Healam said a representative for a component supplier convinced him that "we ought to get into screens."
A new line, The Solution Screen, a retractable fabric screen that is kept under tension in a frame, is the company's latest product and is leading its emergence from the recession, Healam said.
The company's staffing has held relatively steady during the recession, even with an increase in automation. Healam said the company is nearly back to the 38 full-time-staff level the company hit before the recession.
Healam won't divulge sales figures, but, "Let's put it this way: We weren't sitting on our hands" during the recession.
Good use of time in the down period - Healam taught himself to use computer-assisted drafting software so he could design extruded-aluminum dies in-house and upgrade facilities - put the firm in a good position when the economic gloom began to lift in January, Healam said. In particular, the Solution Screen product line helped it get off to a strong recovery.
Healam is still a strong advocate for rolling metal shutters, which he said always have a thermal advantage over even the best indoor screens. But he said many customers prefer rolling fabric indoor screens to outdoor metal shutters.
So the Solution Screen, an outside mounted-fabric screen that provides some of the aesthetics of an indoor screen, and some of the light blocking and thermal advantage of an outside shutter, has been a hit.
It can also be used as a retractable wall on patios and other outdoor enclosures. The company also makes rolling screens that are mounted inside. Because of all the color options for frames, screens and slats, every job is a custom job, Healam said.
Seeing your work "makes you feel good"
Shop foreman Bobby Collister runs the Bilby Road operation where the metal shutters are built.
Collister, 25, has been with the company for eight years, since graduating from Amphitheater High School.
He said he'd done every job in the factory, from running the German machine that cuts and assembles the Italian-made rolling shutter slats, to operating the company's custom, three-booth powder paint line.
He said he's proud when he sees his shop's work on homes and businesses around town. "It makes you feel good when you see something you produced and it looks good, and it's working right," Collister said.
How powder painting works
Healam said the powder painting operation, though costly to set up, has been a plus for the company.
"In 2006 we spent about $90,000 to $100,000 on outside powder coating," Healam said.
But when the Bilby plant opened, they took powder painting in-house, installing three 30-foot-long booths. The first cleans and etches the metal parts.
The second is where positively charged paint powder is sprayed at the negatively charged metal parts and attracted to them like metal filings to a magnet.
Then the rack of frame parts is rolled into a 350-degree oven and baked for 15 minutes to form a tough, weatherproof coating.
Healam said they bought the 2.5-acre parcel on Bilby and went ahead with construction of the new building just months before the housing market crashed. Now the company has a hot new product and fewer competitors than it did when going into the recession.
But he says if it had been just a few months later, when the bottom fell out, he doesn't know if he would have made his move to expand.
Made in Tucson
On StarNet: See a slideshow of Tucson Rolling Shutters at azstarnet.com/gallery
ABOUT THE SERIES
Made in Tucson is an occasional series about local companies that make things, how they're made and the people who make them.
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Tucson Rolling Shutters Inc.
Founded: 1979
Business: Rolling window shutters, interior and exterior retractable screens
Owners: Jeff and Judy Healam
Employees: 38
Contact reporter Dan Sorenson at 573-4185 or dsorenson@azstarnet.com
