Sealer of
Weights and Measures
a position held by the late Justus Roe the 1870's led to the start
of what today is one of the most successful industries in the
Patchogue area.
Mr. Roe, the grandfather of the present operators of
the Justus Roe Steel Measuring Tape Company was a surveyor at this
time and desired to give his customers a full measure, so he started
his own wire tape company to insure that his measurements would be
correct.
He started his tape measure
business in a one room shop
located over a store on East main Street. The first tape measure he
made
was constructed of a flat length of metal tape on which he placed
rivets at designated intervals forming a type of Braille tape
measure. Mr. Roe began using the new type tape in his surveying work
and found it to be very satisfactory and a great improvement over
other measuring methods. He told his friends about his tape they in
turn asked him to make one of them and the Justus Roe steel
measuring tape company became a reality.
The founder of the company
at first only intended it to be a part time operation, since at this
time he was involved in many other pursuits, among them being: The Roe
Hotel, real estate business, surveying and various types of work for
both the county and state governments. He produced only two or three
tapes a week at the beginning and did not find it very profitable at
this time. As more and more people became aware of his tapes they
were more and more demand and he began to devote more and more time
to the making of tapes.
With the growth of the business, Mr. Roe's four
sons became active in it each fulfilling one of the major positions
in the company. Nathaniel Roe, who was an inventor, handled the
mechanical work in the plant and kept all the machines in
operation. During his life he held many patents in relation to the
wire tape business and one for the clutch and steering mechanism now
used in many boats. Howard was business manager and Austin and Henry
were in charge of production. During this period the business was
operated as a partnership.
The business grew at first rather slowly
and it remained mostly a family run business. Over the years the
distribution area continued to expend and the Roe products gained
nation and world wide prestige. As the demand ands market area
increased addition space was needed to produce the product. In about
1900 the Roe factory building was constructed in Roe Court, off East
Main Street, this served as the major plant for many years. At some
period prior to 1900 they maintained a plant in Brookhaven in which
the heavier work was handled.
During the second world war the Roe
plant reached its peak output. The plant operated on three shifts and
much of the volume of business was for the U.S. Government. During
this period the plant which had started as an owner operated plant
employed 80 people from this area. The working space grew from the
original one room located over the store on East Main Street to the
10,000 square feet of the plant in Roe Court. The methods of
production also changed greatly: the first tapes were made entirely
by hand and a limited variety of the product was produced. Now tapes
measuring from 18 inches to 500 feet can be made in approximately
one fourth the time it took to make one tape in 1900.
The Roe plant
is proud of its employee relations. Nathaniel Roe, president of the
company said that more than 30 per cent of their employees have been
working for the company 15 years or more. He credited this record to
the fact that the employees have job security and steady
employment. He said if we have rush work to do or have a large order
to turn out we do not hire additional help to fill it but we pass
the increase in business along to our permanent help in the form of
overtime which means they too profit from the increase. The plant
also provides the normal employee benefit programs which together
with the friendly attitude of the management makes it possible to
maintain an enviable employee management relationship.
In 1947 the
company was incorporated with Nathaniel and Henry Roe being the
major stock holders. The corporation operated until 1958 without a
board of directors. Since 1958 an enlarge board of directors
including now stock holders, has been running the company with
Alfred Roe as chairman of the board, Nathaniel Roe as president.
Justus G. Roe as vice president, and Gerald Newman. and Joseph Wiener
as members. Howard Cohen production manager and Mrs. Rowden as office
manager.
This year a large new addition was added to plant
facilities of the factory with the completion of the new building on
the west bank of the Patchogue River and on the east side of River
Avenue. The new building adds an additional 17,000 square feet of
floor space to the facilities and will serve as the home office of
the corporation. The expansion of facilities was undertaken for
several reason according Nathaniel Roe. First was the need for
additional space, secondly the old factory building had four floors
and modern production methods necessitated a single story building
thirdly, in the past it was necessary to farm out part of the tape
processing work. To overcome this they recently obtained a new
machine that is 100 feet long. The old building was too short to
house it. Probably one of the most important reasons for the addition
is the outstanding growth of the business since 1958 and the desire
to expand their merchandising procedures to include more and more
small accounts to which they can supply tapes under the Roe name.
A
large portion of the present output of the plant is done for four
major purchasers. They have just recently reached an agreement to be
the supplier for Montgomery Ward and they have also been the sole
suppliers for Millers Falls and Western Auto, for quite some time.
They also handle many government contracts. The rest of their
outputs is to wholesale jobers. The tapes made for the large
purchasers with the exception of the government are not sold under
the name of Roe tapes, but rather under a brand name owned by the
purchasers.
The distribution of the products to the smaller accounts
is done through manufacturers representatives. Contracts have been
arranged with representatives in the United States. These
representatives deal with domestic concerns and also with importers
and exporters. The plant ships orders to India, South America, Australia, Canada
and South Africa. Most of their promotional efforts are directed to
these representatives but according to Justus G. Roe, they
occasionally branch out to direct promotional methods. To illustrate
this point he mentioned the special 500 foot tape made to measure
Mickey Mantle's home runs which he personally presented to Mickey at
Yankee stadium.