Inside Vinyl Kraft: A Conversation with President Ryan Rolfe

We sat down with Ryan Rolfe, President of Vinyl Kraft Custom Windows and Doors, to discuss his passion for the business, the company's evolution, and what sets them apart in the competitive window manufacturing industry.

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What do you love most about your role here at Vinyl Kraft?

I love the ability to help our clients and our customers, as well as lead our folks in a local business in our local area. It's awesome being able to make that kind of impact in the community while delivering quality products.

Which Vinyl Kraft product or feature is your favorite?

My favorite is  our warm edge spacer technology. From the standpoint that it separates us from some of the other competition, it has a huge impact on energy savings. And I think that's what our clients value the most.

Since you've joined Vinyl Kraft, how has the entire company changed?

We've moved quite a bit over the last four years. We've changed products. We've added additional products, specifically in black, and with our new Obsidian products. We've changed the way that we entirely look at our staff and our pay scale. We've recently changed the way that we deliver products.

The one thing we have intentionally kept the same is the way that we serve with our customers. Vinyl Kraft's always done an impeccable job of servicing clients. So that is one thing we haven't changed. Outside of that, we really try to take a step forward in a lot of different areas.

How would you describe the team culture and spirit at Vinyl Kraft?

We like to have fun, and I'm certainly one that — I think no one takes themselves too seriously here. So it's a culture where people want to come to work. They want to show up. Folks want to work hard. They like the idea of us having scorecards or different KPIs or metrics so everyone knows at the end of the day whether we won or lost. I like fostering that type of atmosphere. But certainly, I think we like to have a bit of fun.

What do you believe sets Vinyl Kraft apart from the competition?

A window is a window. It's a piece of vinyl with glass. What makes the difference is when a window breaks — because you're shipping glass, and it will happen — how do we respond? How do we take care of our customers? How do we take care of homeowners when our customers have a challenge? What can we do to help them through that?

Everything we do is custom. Everything we do is a one-off. So a majority of what we do all day is get challenges from customers. "Can you help us make this particular type of window, or can we make these two items together?" That's what separates us. We have very high-quality products. We have a really tight delivery time.

But more than anything else, we serve our customers. The feedback I get from our customers is that when you call Vinyl Kraft, you get a person, and there's a relationship with the people here. I think that's what people enjoy the most.

Is there anything else that you're excited about or looking toward in the future?

The biggest thing right now is we have a couple new products coming out this year, specifically with our Obsidian product, and then we have a new feature set that will come out mid year — an integrated lock and latch system that will offer premium features and energy benefits for our windows. Those are probably the two immediate things we look forward to.

We're continuing to expand our footprint and adding new sales staff to get to new customers, which is also very exciting for us. Between new opportunities, new territories, and new products, our future this year is pretty bright.