Slant/Fin — well-engineered hydronic products

Slant/Fin was started in 1949 by Mel Dubin in Brooklyn, New York. The core idea of the company was to make a better baseboard and to generally improve the field of hydronics. Slant/Fin quickly expanded into making boilers and other products for the growing heating field. Today, Slant/Fin is the largest manufacturer of baseboard heating in the world and a major supplier of hydronic and high efficiency boilers.

Phc News recently conducted an exclusive Q&A with some of the team members at Slant/Fin — Adam Dubin, president; Bob Flanagan, vice president of sales; and Stacey B. Droogan, vice president of sales and marketing services.

Mel Dubin is an industry icon. How much is he still involved in the day-to-day operations?

Adam Dubin: Mel Dubin's business principles of making well-engineered hydronic products are still at the heart of Slant/Fin today. Mel enjoys coming to work every day to be a part of the business activity, which he calls "fun."

How does it feel to walk into a building and see a baseboard unit and know that the company was the innovation behind it?

Dubin: For the many people — including myself — that work at Slant/Fin or have worked at Slant/Fin over the years, there is tremendous pride and satisfaction in knowing that we create a quality heating product that has been a part of people’s homes and lives. I’m proud to be a part of the family behind the business which includes all the people that work with us now and all of those that helped build this company.

What are your specific job duties and initiatives for the company?

Stacey B. Droogan: My job duties at Slant/Fin are diverse. I oversee the customer service department as well as marketing and tech service. I feel the service we provide our customers is just as important to building and maintaining a good business partnership as the product we sell. Our initiatives for the company are to bring our service and marketing efforts to a new level at Slant/Fin and be known as the best in the industry.

Describe any new products, training events, seminars, etc.

Droogan: Slant/Fin has come up with many new products over the past year. We have expanded our Lynx line of boilers to have three sizes, as well as adding a combi boiler on two of those sizes. We have also come out with a stainless steel boiler also available in a combi-model. We pride ourselves in being the best boiler and baseboard company around and being able to service as much of our customers requirements as possible.

With new products, can you talk about the importance of energy efficiency?

Bob Flanagan: Slant/Fin recognizes and values the importance of HE boilers to both our industry and the environment. As we continue to grow our research and development into this segment of our business we are striving to provide the very best equipment to meet the needs of both our distributors and home owners across the country. HE boilers are the future of our industry. Slant/Fin has a long standing reputation of engineering the very best to our customers. Recognizing the importance of this segment, we will continue to develop and manufacture products that meet and exceed these new and changing market demands.

Are all of your products American-made? If so, what is the significance of this?

Droogan: Most of our product is American made, including all of our residential baseboard, all of our cast iron gas boilers and over 99% of our cast iron oil boilers. We do pride ourselves in being an American company with our main factory and headquarters in N.Y. located on Long Island. We do have a factory in Canada and outsource some of our high efficiency products from Europe. We feel that in order to keep up with all of the European companies entering the market we needed to expand our line and that was the proven way to do it.

How has Slant/Fin weathered this particularly rough economy?

Droogan: We have focused on customer service and product development. In tough economy’s many companies cut marketing efforts and R&D. We did the exact opposite. We have expanded our product offerings as well as reworked entire website and entered the social media market. We now have a new website and can also be found on facebook. We also have a blog, which will contain stories of interest for homeowners, contractors and wholesalers. We are focusing on being able reach and service as many customers as possible.

How do you see next year and the short term regarding the economy?

Bob Flanagan: As we move forward into the next few years SF is preparing to meet the needs of our customers by revolutionizing a new look baseboard as well as continuing the engineering of new HE boilers. We are preparing for an ever increasing competitive landscape by doing what we do best. We are going to listen to all spectrums of our customer base and continue to provide them with products that will allow them to increase all levels of their business and ours.

How can the company help the struggling contractor?

Droogan: We as a company have contractor programs to help them in marketing and sales. We have co-op programs and ways for the contractors to earn more money selling Slant/Fin. We have designed single ads to full marketing campaigns and love working with contractors that are dedicated to growing their business through Slant/Fin. We urge contractors interested in joining forces with us to contact the Slant/Fin representative in there area to discuss options and ways we can help them.

Explain the significance of creating a strong relationship with wholesalers?

Flanagan: Our relationship with our distributors is the most important aspect of our business at Slant/Fin. Partnering is an old word used in our industry. Slant/Fin takes our relationship beyond this word. Our day to day business is centered around working with our distributors to the point of looking at this relationship as just that. We want to be able to meet their needs to the point of establish a relationship where we work together with the common goal of increased profitability and market protection of both our business'.
How do you create and maintain brand loyalty with contractors?

Droogan: We feel training, product quality and service are the three most important ways to create and maintain brand loyalty. We continually bring contractors to our factory and main offices to see how we operate. They learn about the diverse line of product we have and get to see our factory and how it is run. They will learn about specific quality practices we have in effect to assure all of our product is manufactured to spec. We have the best tech service dept that is here to help whether the contractor is on the job or designing a job.

The last time I said, “Today is a great day,” I was doing what?

Droogan: I was reading an email from Evan Yudell, product sales manager — Boston Group of Ferguson — A Wolseley Company.

The email read as follows: “I wanted to take a moment and thank all of you for everything that you have done for us during the past few weeks as we tried to supply HD-1400 baseboard and accessories to our customer, Fraser Engineering, for Dean College in Franklin, MA. You guys CLEARLY went ABOVE AND BEYOND the call of duty on NUMEROUS OCCASIONS, and it was your efforts (to essentially make miracles happen) that helped us get everything they needed so that they could complete the job. There are a lot of companies that talk about customer service, but few can actually back it up. It is first-class service like what you guys provided that make us as proud to sell your products as you undoubtedly are to make them. THANK YOU FOR ALL OF YOUR HARD WORK!!!”

Reading an email like this really makes your day. It also helped show our team that are efforts are recognized! That was a great day!