Business View Magazine | June 2022

62 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 6 SHEET METAL SUPPLY LTD . from its state-of-the-art Grayslake facility. But to comprehend the height of this towering company is to appreciate how deep its roots go… and they do, indeed, run deep. “My dad, Phil Kweton, started the company in 1991 in a 16 by 30 foot garage space with equipment that was all operated by hand,” shares Ben Kweton, VP at SMS. “At the time, the focus was on roof perimeter edges for residential and commercial roofing, and over the years, we have just evolved from there.” Having outgrown its 30,000 square foot facility in Mundelein, Illinois, the company decided in 2018 to move to its current 82,000 square foot facility. This move couldn’t have been better timed, wrapping up just before the pandemic hit in late 2019. Kweton admits, “During the move, we also had two major pieces of equipment coming in, so we struggled to get everything installed and get all our technicians trained, but we managed to fight our way through that challenging time while retaining all our employees.” SMS’s products and services span a wide gamut of materials and fabrication processes, including low slope, steep slope, and façade fabrications. The company is also North America’s largest distributor of German-made RHEINZINK materials, a suite of architectural zinc coils, sheets, gutters, and accessories, besides S-5! snow retention systems. Currently, SMS has a talented workforce of 33 working out of its Grayslake facility, led by the brother-sister duo of Ben Kweton and Phoebe McCorkindale. While the company has a family- oriented culture that fosters inclusion and a sense of belonging, McCorkindale points out that the recent pandemic has tremendously impacted its ability to find new workers.