Standing behind a tagline of “Pros Who Know Choose BrassCraft,” the company is celebrating its 77th anniversary. We sat down with Mike Roberts, vice president of sales and marketing, to hear how BrassCraft is celebrating its anniversary as well as its strategy to forge ahead.

Ruth Mitchell: Mike, you have long standing connection within the PHCP industry with more than 12 years at Masco companies. Recently, your role was broadened to the vice president of sales and marketing at BrassCraft. The company also went through a strategic move of merging the sales and marketing teams. Please fill us in on the path ahead. 

Mike Roberts: Thank you, I am honored to lead such an incredible team of dedicated professionals that have a real pride in their craft. Marrying the two activities under one leader provides further alignment between the teams and increases our commitment to our customers and pros. 

In this new path forward, sales and marketing will have a sharper focus on delivering winning strategic promotional initiatives to our wholesale partners, as well as new products and innovations to serve loyal BrassCraft pros. 

RM: This year marks BrassCraft’s 77th anniversary. How is the company celebrating, both internally and with its customers? 

MR: It is an unbelievable moment that has only been achieved with the support of pros who share our commitment to quality and trust. At BrassCraft, we truly believe plumbing is a craft — one of the few we have left. We work hard every day to enable the craft, respect it and put the pros who practice it at the forefront of our work every day. 

For our 75th anniversary, we ran a promotional giveaway for professional plumbers and partnered with wholesalers to place advertising material for the giveaway in their stores. We also celebrated with our pros via social media through limited edition giveaways. 

In our 77th year, we remain committed to providing quality products to our pros for a job done right and top-tier customer service to wholesalers. We are increasing our time spent face-to-face with customers and pros. The feedback and support we receive drives us to excel. 

RM: The company is known as an innovator and solutions provider. What new innovations will BrassCraft launch into the marketplace in the next two-to-three years? 

MR: As an industry leader with more than 75 years of experience, we knows pros trust quality products. Through our rigorous validation process, we ensure our products meet the BrassCraft standard so pros can walk away from a job with peace of mind. 

Few brands earn the fierce loyalty of plumbing professionals that BrassCraft experiences every day. We are redoubling our efforts to deserve that loyalty through exceptional quality and product solutions. In the next two-to-three years, we are launching several products from our innovation pipeline that focus on ease and speed of installation, coupled with the known BrassCraft quality our pros expect. 

RM: The company has a philosophy of ‘a culture of continuous improvement, quality and exceptional customer service.’ Tell us more on how BrassCraft partners with its wholesale distributors and contractors for success. 

MR: In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a pivotal moment when essential work was determined, and plumbing was placed next to things such as health care. The critical importance of plumbing and the essential work of the pro reinforced how important our supporting efforts are in that work. 

The entire BrassCraft team, from the manufacturing team to executive leadership, is focused on the pro. It’s critical that we ensure only quality products leave our manufacturing facilities and we provide the wholesalers the support they need to support their customers. 

RM: Supply chain issues still linger; how has BrassCraft helped its customers navigate the issue? 

MR: Many industries were, of course, affected by supply chain shortages. To diminish any interruption, our team created alternative packaging to circumvent any packaging shortages and offered alternate BrassCraft products for our customers if stock was delayed. We increased safety stocks and leveraged our relationships with our suppliers and transportation partners to ensure minimized disruption. 

Along with those efforts during peak supply chain delays, we increased our capacity for American manufacturing by investing in our Thomasville, N.C. facility. When completed, the expansion will grow our American manufacturing footprint to 157,000 square feet of production space and create BrassCraft jobs in Davison County.