LIVE From IRE With Green Link!

Dana from Green Link Engineering talks about the full line of roofing solutions the company has developed over the past two years. 

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of an interview with Sales and Business Development Coordinator Dana Castle from Green Link Engineering. You can read the interview below or watch the recorded livestream. 

Karen Edwards: Hello everybody. This is Karen Edwards and we are back at the RoofersCoffeeShop sound stage at the International Roofing Expo 2022, in New Orleans. Joining me is Dana from Green Link Engineering. Welcome. 

Dana Castle: Well, thank you, Karen. Thanks for having me. We're so excited to be here at the show. We missed the show in Las Vegas this last year, and we're really excited to be exhibiting again this year. We took this time in the last two years to develop some new products, but I wanted to start with the beginning of our company. 

Karen Edwards: Yes, let's talk about it because you've been on a roof, surely where you've seen HVAC equipment, other equipment sitting on top of rotting two by fours. 

Dana Castle: Right? 

Karen Edwards: Not very good- 

Dana Castle: Or four by fours. 

Karen Edwards: Or four by fours. 

Dana Castle: Sometimes tires. 

Karen Edwards: Yeah. 

Dana Castle: Sometimes a milk carton, or milk crate. Sometimes a milk jug. 

Karen Edwards: Yeah. 

Dana Castle: I mean, we have all kinds of interesting pictures in our hall of shame. 

Karen Edwards: Hall of shame is a good name for it. 

Dana Castle: It is the hall of shame, yes. 

Karen Edwards: Tell me about, well, first of all, I have to say that I've never seen one of these in person before, and I picked it up and I went, "Oh, oh my gosh, this is so light and easy to move around," but it can hold so much weight. 

Dana Castle: That is a fact. 

Karen Edwards: Tell us about that. 

Dana Castle: One of the reasons why is this product is made out of glass reinforced nylon. It's not made out of rubber, like a lot of our competitor's products and it's not made out of metal. It's glass reinforced nylon, but glass reinforced nylon has the same properties as aluminum. 

Dana Castle: They're very lightweight as you were shocked- 

Karen Edwards: I was surprised. 

Dana Castle: This was actually the first head that was developed when I was still part of Chem Link. When Phil Georgeau sold our company to SOPREMA at Chem Link, he kept this one little teeny piece that didn't look exactly like this. At that point, it was just black and it had a smaller base and he wanted to start another company. It's been exciting journey to be on with him the last five years. It's been really exciting. 

So we've taken our product line and we've developed it into a full-blown product line of everything that can go on the roof. You can put on one of our supports. 

Karen Edwards: Wow. This has a really cool name. 

Dana Castle: Yeah. This is called the Knuckle Head. The reason why it's called the Knuckle Head is a very funny story. 

Karen Edwards: Okay. I'd like to hear it. 

Dana Castle: So that if you were just to look at the top of this without the cap, it looks like a Knuckle head, a converter off of a Harley Davidson motorcycle. That's where the name Knuckle Head came from. 

So our basic product line are called Knuckle Heads and during the years... I've been there now for five years, the company's almost six years old. We have taken this line and built into a full-service line, as I was saying, We've done a lot of things because we listen to contractors. We truly believe that we are a contractor driven company, and that's part of our tag is, "We are contractor driven." 

So at one point, this part I'm holding up right here, actually, didn't look like this, but we listened to contractors. They had no way to put a bolt through it and secure it correctly, so we changed it. The other interesting thing out our product, and maybe Karen, I could have you turn that for me. Or turn this- 

Karen Edwards: Oh, this one. 

Dana Castle: Show that they, our total Knuckle Head line is height adjustable. So when you're going across a flat roof, and we all know there is no such thing as a flat roof. 

Karen Edwards: A flat roof. 

Dana Castle: Every roof has some slow slope, and you can actually adjust up to an inch for slope going across the roof. 

Karen Edwards: Smart. 

Dana Castle: Yeah. 

Karen Edwards: Wow. 

Dana Castle: It's a pretty unique thing. So like I was saying, we've taken this one little piece. We have a full product line now, including really awesome mechanical support kits. We do products for duct work. I think our largest product with mechanical support kits was recently finished in Salt Lake City. There is a blog on our website about it, and we did 482 units on top of a multi-use commercial building in Salt Lake City. 

Karen Edwards: Wow, 482, wow. 

Dana Castle: 482 HVAC units. So on top of that, we do a lot of duct supports in the Chicagoland area. We're very excited and I would love for everybody to stop by our booth, but what I'm most excited about today is to introduce our newest product. 

Karen Edwards: I'm excited to see it. 

Dana Castle: Yeah, it's amazing. We patented this product. It is made out of, believe it or not aluminum, and Karen, I want you to feel, again, this is lightweight. Now this has a couple of pipe supports on it that I'm going to talk about as well. 

Karen Edwards: Oh my gosh. 

Dana Castle: Very lightweight. 

Karen Edwards: Very. 

Dana Castle: However, if you were to take this and put it on top of an Instron, which is a crushing machine, which we have one at the office, and we have a lady who specializes in using it. 

Karen Edwards: Testing. 

Dana Castle: She loves to do it. She took her over 20,000 pounds to push through this. Of course, you would never put 20,000 pounds on a rooftop. 

Karen Edwards: No, but wow. 

Dana Castle: It's pretty exciting. So what, this is an extruded aluminum that is mill finished, anodized and mill finished. In this particular instance, we have an integrated yellow urethane pad, but we also sell these without the pad. Here at IRE if you attend our booth, stop by to scan your badge, we'll follow up and give you 10% off of our whole metal headline, including the accessories. 

Karen Edwards: Nice. 

Dana Castle: On top of this, actually, a really neat accessory that I found from actually looking at somebody else who does this type of a block support. These are called snap and strut accessories. They're not a product of ours, but they are made in the USA as are all of our products. We've added these to our line as an optional accessory. They are also on the special as well. 

Karen Edwards: I love that you are contractor driven. 

Dana Castle: Yes. 

Karen Edwards: That you listen to what the contractor is looking for, and then you come up with a solution for it. 

Dana Castle: Yes, and that's where we pride ourselves in. We've also do custom manufacturing. I had a person call me two weeks ago that had a two 12 pitch, and they had an air conditioning unit that we is literally sliding off the roof. Sliding off the roof, and took pictures of it. Within four days, we were able to develop a new solution, and a new pad to support that, to install, and be able to support their unit. It happened to be a roofing company. A lot of times our business is sold in the HVAC market, but this was a roofing contractor who had seen us at a show, and had just gotten a note that we were going to be at IRE, and reached out and go, "Can you solve this problem?" So, that made me very excited to know. 

Karen Edwards: That's fun.  Now you mentioned stopping by the booth, getting 10% off. 

Dana Castle: 10% off all metal head and metal head accessories. This is a show special. We'd love to start getting these out on a lot more roofs. We have sold probably 10, 15 roofs in the last week that are just using the metalhead support, which is very exciting. 

Karen Edwards: It is. What booth number are you in? 

Dana Castle: We are in booth... I'm going to have to look again, I'm sorry about that. 

Karen Edwards: That's okay. 

Dana Castle: 2954. 

Karen Edwards: 2954. 

Dana Castle: It's a walk from here. 

Karen Edwards: It is. I was just looking we're down here in booth 249. So yeah, that's all the way over on the other side. The show floor is- 

Dana Castle: If you see the Durolast booth, we're about straight back from it. 

Karen Edwards: All right. Our friends at Durolast. Yeah. Look for the hanging signs. 

Dana Castle: Yeah. 

Karen Edwards: Yeah. It's been a good show. It's been busy. Have you guys had a lot of traffic? 

Dana Castle: We've had... you know, surprisingly, this is a horrible story, but yesterday our crate was at the wrong spot. So I set up the booth, and there wasn't any number on the floor. They didn't have the placards up yet. I got a Fran to call from our office saying, you guys are in the wrong on booth, but it happens to be that the nice people here at Freeman helped me move the booth. I had to slide it across the curtain. So we have a lovely council that is on the other side of us. It's the Hispanic Council. 

Karen Edwards: Oh, nice. 

Dana Castle: I think that's their first time this year, and I know that the IRE is doing big push in the Latino industry this year, and it's really pleasant. We've had a lot of traffic because of their booth next to us. 

Karen Edwards: Oh, that's good to see them here. 

Dana Castle: Yeah. 

Karen Edwards: We'll have to get by and say hello. 

Dana Castle: Yeah. 

Karen Edwards: And yeah, wow. Lots to see and do here. If someone is not able to be at the show and visit the Green Link booth, you can learn more about them on the roof, their RoofersCoffeeShop directory. 

Dana Castle: Yes. 

Karen Edwards: Everything you need to know is there. Links to their website, how to contact the company, if you have questions. So we want to make it easy for you. If you are here or maybe you're planning to come tomorrow, and you're just checking our videos out today to see what's going on, be sure to visit Dana. 

Dana Castle: Yep. 

Karen Edwards: I'm serious, you need to feel how easy and lightweight, and these are just game changers. 

Dana Castle: Yes, and there isn't anybody in the market that makes things out of glass reinforced nylon. It has metal like properties, it's an excellent product. We also have accessory pads that go under these, and we do work with a lot of the major roofing manufacturers as well. So, please stop, take a look at our stuff. We're very fortunate this year, to be joined by our engineer, Andre. He's at the booth he has. If you have any question, or a special need, or a special project, he would love to address it for you. 

Karen Edwards: Problem solvers. Give me a challenge. 

Dana Castle: Problem solvers. 

Karen Edwards: I'll give you a solution. We love it. Well, Dana, thank you for coming by. 

Dana Castle: Well thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here. 

Karen Edwards: Yes. 

Dana Castle: As you know, we truly appreciate your support throughout the years as well. 

Karen Edwards: Thank you. It's wonderful to see you, and that being said, we'll be back again. Subscribe to our YouTube channel, ring the bell. So you get those notifications, you know when we're going live! 

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