East Coast Systems Inc. is a metal roof contracting firm in Jacksonville, Fla. Over its 13-year history, owner Frank Christian has shaped the company into one that puts on quality metal roofs as promised — and at a fair price. In spite of the simplicity of this vision and his easygoing way of doing business in the midst of the highly regulated Florida construction industry, Christian has built a thriving business with the kind of reputation any contractor would desire. Roofing Contractor recently spent a day with Christian to find out how such an enterprise is built.
PCB stood for “Poor Country Boy” according to then-owner Butch Hicks. The primary focus for the firm was installing and troubleshooting installations of “Microzinc” metal roofing projects. At the time, Microzinc was produced and marketed by the Ball Corp., and Hicks worked with Ball to install the system and assist other contractors in the installation of Microzinc roofing. While we can’t be sure about the “poor country boy” part of the name, the “national” part was for real as the work took them all over the country. According to Christian, Hicks now works for a large national roof contracting firm and Ball sold the Microzinc system to another firm that has since taken it out of production.