FALL 1998
Orleans Sheet Metal: Providing High Quality Roofing & Sheet Metal for Over 70 Years
Seated: Louis "Ted" Schwander, President. Standing, Left to Right: Don Schwander, Secretary-Treasurer; Jay Schwander, Vice-President; and Eddie Sims, Berridge Manufacturing Company Regional Sales Manager.
Although Orleans Sheet Metal Works and Roofing have been in business in New Orleans for over seventy years, the Schwander family tradition in metal working and "tin-smith" craft goes back many more years. Ancestor Baltazar Schwander left Germany where he had worked as a tin-smith to come to America in 1849. A century and a half later, the Schwander family continues to offer its clients expertly crafted metal roofing and accessories.
The present company was founded in 1928 by Theodore Schwander, who travelled in a horse and buggy to do sheet metal gutters, porches, corrugated metal sheds and decks. After World War II, when Louis T. Schwander, father of current president Louis "Ted" Schwander came into the business, the company broadened its area of emphasis to include other types of roofing.
In the late 1940's Orleans Sheet Metal employed a total of four people. Types of work performed included flat roofs, shingle roofs, roof repairs and hand-formed and crimped metal standing seam roofing. Standing seam roof panels were made on a hand brake then seams were manually double-locked in the field.
Ted Schwander started working for the company in 1967 and became a partner with his dad in 1977. In 1978 the company became a corporation. Brothers Jay and Don worked for Orleans during the summers through college, and in 1982 and 1984 respectively, they became stockholders in the corporation. Ted's son, Louis Theodore Schwander III, also works for the company.
Today , Orleans Sheet Metal Works and Roofing, Inc. has forty-five employees and operates ten field crews. Orleans's Sheet Metal Foreman has been with the company for fourteen years and the seven field mechanics who serve as job superintendents each have more than ten years' experience.
"Metal roofing has increased our volume by 50%, and site-forming has been the main factor in enabling us to grow so quickly."
Ted Schwander, President
One of the main catalysts in the company's rapid growth over the past two decades has been the emphasis on standing seam metal roofing. Orleans Sheet Metal began site forming standing seam metal roofing in the mid 1980's and began purchasing prefinished metal coil from Berridge shortly thereafter. In 1996, the company purchased a Model SS-14 Portable Roll Former from Berridge and today, the company uses several different models of Berridge machines as dictated by job requirements. Ted Schwander explains: "Metal roofing has increased our volume by 50%, and site-forming has been the main factor in enabling us to grow so quickly." Commercial roofing now accounts for over sixty-five percent of Orleans Sheet Metal's volume.