Matrix Roofing CEO Wendy Marvin says she knew beforehand her company had been nominated for the Greater Vancouver Chamber of Commerce’s Small Business of the Year Award, but as a relative newcomer to the Chamber, she says she never really contemplated the possibility that she would be selected.
So it came as a bit of a shock when she got the news just a few days before the chamber’s annual dinner on Sept. 25. Her family had planned to be out of town that weekend, so she had to quickly reorganize and ended up delivering an off-the-cuff speech at the event. It was only afterward that she was able to really think about the impact of the award.
“I got to have the whole office staff and family there — it was a really nice thing to share,” she says. “I didn’t sleep for two nights after that — it kicked in for me, what it would mean.”
According to chamber officials, Marvin and Matrix Roofing were chosen to highlight not just the company’s success story, but also its rapidly growing role in the Vancouver community. The company is a member of the national organization No Roof Left Behind, which works to secure new roofs for families in need, supplied by local roofing companies that donate the materials and time.
“We think the world of (Wendy Marvin). She’s absolutely fantastic,” said Chandra Chase, the Chamber’s programs and communications director. “She’s been at the Chamber only a year or two, but she’s been a fire hose of positivity and can-do attitude.”
Chase also cited Matrix Roofing’s participation in the Oregon Tradeswomen Career Fair, which works to educate students and adults about career training, and noted that Marvin is a member of the Washington chapter of the National Women in Roofing organization. The volunteer group serves as a networking hub for women at every level of the industry.
“Anybody can come as long as they’re involved with roofs somehow,” says Kendall Eckerson of Columbia Roofing and Sheet Metal, a friend of Marvin’s and the chair of the Oregon chapter.
Marvin says the roofing industry has been and remains male-dominated, but the balance is shifting, and she says she’s proud of the role she plays in moving the needle. She says the biggest impact comes from simply interacting with vendors, customers and industry peers as the chief executive of a roofing company.
“It’s always interesting to go to industry events — I’m definitely a minority,” she says. “One person at a time, you just do your best to make those changes.”
Small-scale origins
Marvin says none of those issues were on her radar when she and her then-husband Joe Marvin founded Matrix Roofing in 2007. Wendy Marvin says they decided to form the company after growing frustrated with what they perceived as a lack of reliability in the local contracting industry.
Marvin had business administration experience and her husband had prior roofing experience, so they teamed up to form Matrix Roofing, initially operating out of their house before moving to a small office on Fourth Plain Boulevard. Founding a business was uncharted territory for both of them, Marvin says.
“We knew we were doing something really different,” she says. “No one in our families had ever really owned a business.”
Matrix Roofing immediately faced a substantial challenge when the Great Recession hit, but Marvin says they were able to maintain continuous growth even during the first few years, in part because the demand in the roofing industry is somewhat independent of the status of the economy overall. “Everybody needs a roof,” she says.
That growth continued in the post-recession years as Matrix Roofing began to establish itself in the Vancouver area. In 2013, the company moved to its current headquarters at 6000 N.E. 88th St., near the Costco and Interstate 205, to make room for a growing staff of roofers and office employees.
Marvin says one feature has remained consistent through the transitions and growth: a core focus on earning and keeping the customers’ trust. The company puts minimal emphasis on advertising, seeking instead to connect with new jobs through industry referrals and word of mouth.
Getting the word out is especially critical in a profession with few repeat customers, she adds. But the strategy has been successful for Matrix Roofing, and Marvin says it also proved to be one of the ways the company was able to weather the recession years.
“We didn’t build a business to sell to people — we built it to earn referrals,” she says. “That was the secret sauce. We worked really hard at building relationships.”
Community outreach
Marvin became the sole owner of Matrix Roofing in 2017 after she and Joe Marvin divorced and she bought his stake in the company. Joe Marvin had been the public face of the company during its early years, so Wendy Marvin says she was initially apprehensive about the transition. But she found the company had grown into something bigger than just one person.
“All our employees stuck with us,” she says. “Matrix is an entity of its own now — (it’s at the point where) you stop being a self-employed employee.”
The company has continued its upward growth in the past two years. At the time of the transition, it had a staff of 18, but has grown to a high of 28.
“We pretty much exploded after that,” Marvin says. “We’ve hired 10 people in the last year.”
The company has also begun to branch out and take on commercial projects such as apartment complex roofs, as well as more varied types and styles such as flat roofs, metal roofs and roofs made of synthetic materials. The company’s range has expanded as well, reaching as far north as Castle Rock and occasionally as far south as Salem, Ore., with a large number of jobs in the Portland area.
As the company took on a greater presence in Clark County, Marvin says she and other staff began to look for new ways to connect to the community. That prompted her to join Women in Roofing and seek a partnership with No Roof Left Behind.
“What we really wanted was a vehicle to give back to the community,” she says.
No Roof Left Behind hosts a series of annual events throughout the United States in which community members can nominate their neighbors to receive a new roof and then vote to select a winner from a list of finalists.
Matrix Roofing became the partner agency for the Clark County region earlier this year. On Oct. 2, the national organization announced the first winner for the region: the Marsh family, who live in east Vancouver. Simonn Marsh was left paralyzed from the chest down after an accident in 2006. A 2016 Columbian story chronicled the family’s adjustments following the accident.
Marvin says Matrix Roofing will begin work on the Marsh’s roof soon, with the goal of finishing before harsh winter weather sets in. And she says the company is already making plans to provide two free roofs in next year’s contest, hopefully with a focus on veterans and their families.
Looking to the next few years, Marvin says she doesn’t have a specific target in mind for Matrix Roofing’s expansion, but hopes to see the organization continue to grow in an organic fashion.
“I don’t think there’s a ‘too big’ when you’re helping customers,” she says.
