It’s been an adventurous climb for Iain Fergusson from a sheep farm in Scotland to the rooftops of Wilmington.

Fergusson founded the Highland Roofing Co. in Wilmington in 2005. His business focused on residential customers until 2009 when it started to take on commercial projects.

“We are now around 75 percent commercial, 25 percent residential,”
Fergusson said.

He grew up in a village of 150 people on a 2,500-acre sheep farm in the south of Scotland.

“The land had been in my family for over three centuries,” he said.

A circuitous path led Fergusson to Wilmington.

His wife, Rebecca, a University of Glasgow student, studied abroad for a semester. Fergusson dropped out of school and accompanied her to the U.S. The couple arrived in February 1997 and married in April of the same year at the age of 21.

“We traveled a lot for the first three years of our marriage, including a year spent in Florida, the western U.S., Alaska and a short stint back in the United Kingdom,” Fergusson said. The couple also visited Malaysia, Thailand, “bicycled around New Zealand for six weeks” and spent time in Australia before finally settling down in Wilmington in January 2000.

The seed of the idea to go into the roofing trade may have been planted when Fergusson was a teenager in Scotland.

“When I was 16, I spent the summer helping two old roofers to reslate the house I grew up in. It took the two of them three months!” he said.

Fergusson enjoyed the view.

“There is something nice about being up high looking down at everything,” he said.

After Fergusson got married, he found work on a roofing crew in Florida for 12 months, “installing tile in the heat.”

“It was not until 2005, after having kids, that I went back to roofing,” Fergusson said.

He worked three months for a Wilmington-area roofing contractor before deciding to venture out on his own.

“I had always wanted to be my own boss, can’t remember not feeling that way,” he said.

The decision paid off.

Highland Roofing now has 17 direct employees, along with six subcontractor crews.

Highland Roofing’s revenues the first year of business totaled about $600,000. Revenues in 2013, the company’s eighth year in operation, were more than $5 million.

Fergusson said the Wilmington market has been good to him.

“I cannot compare it to other areas, as I have no experience. I think as a relatively small town, it’s a good market for a quality contractor,” he said. “If you do not treat people well, a bad reputation will spread fast. Perhaps in a larger urban area that can be diluted by the quantity.”

Quality service is a key concept to Fergusson. The local employer he worked for before starting his own business unwittingly demonstrated what not to do in the roofing trade.

“Poor workmanship, high pressure sales, maximized profit on every job without a care for the customer. I often found myself talking their customers back out of the contract they had signed,” he said. “Being privy to such bad business, it motivated me to start my own business much sooner than I think I would have if I had found work for a reputable company.”

The company Fergusson worked for is now defunct.

Fergusson said he has learned a lot about small business ownership since founding Highland.

“Be self-critical and fully aware of one’s own strength and weaknesses,” he said. “As you grow, hire to offset those weaknesses.”

Another cardinal rule: “Take many small risks – but no large ones.”

Fergusson advises anyone considering starting a small business to put customers first.

“Treat all your customers like gold. It is only through their positive endorsement that you will succeed.” he said. “An extra $1 spent to make them happy is worth $10 in advertising.”

The practice “is easy to do if they are right but hard when they are wrong, [but] do it anyway and move on,” Fergusson said.

The local housing market crash during the recent recession did
not impact Highland Roofing, Fergusson said.

“I was, thankfully, just starting out and getting established during the worst of it, so I did not notice it. I think, in fact, the downturn probably helped me a lot,” he said. “I was new, eager to get a foothold in the market and aggressively pricing work at a time when general contractors, perhaps for the first time in a long time, were looking to reduce costs and so were open to working with a new subcontractor such as myself.

He said he continues to be optimistic about the future of Highland Roofing.

“Things are improving for sure. I have noticed a significant increase in residential custom homes this past 12 months,” he said in late December.

Meanwhile, Fergusson takes steps to grow his company.

As revenue increased and hiring more employees became necessary, Fergusson “worked hard to hire people whose work ethic reflects my own and who I know will treat my customers the way I would like.”

“I know that this company will continue to grow so long as our
reputation stays intact,” he said.

“As long as you are open to growth and do good work, this is a business that will grow by itself, organically.

“There will always be demand because a roof is not an impulse buy or a luxury item. People can upgrade it, but they have to have at least a basic model,” Fergusson said.

He said that future business plans include continued growth in the
local market, “both in residential and commercial and throughout the state commercially.”

Despite his roundabout path to becoming a business owner in Wilmington, Fergusson actually ended up closer to family roots than he expected.

“Onslow County was named after my direct ancestor, my great-grandfather times nine, I think,” said Fergusson, whose middle name is Onslow.

“We all still have the middle name of Onslow,” he said.

Arthur Onslow, however, never set foot on U.S. soil, Fergusson said. And it’s pure coincidence that Fergusson settled in an area that happens to have a nearby county named after one of his ancestors.

“I did not know until I moved here, saw the name of the county and Googled it,” he said.

Fergusson said he is content with where he has landed.

“I love the size of Wilmington, not too big, not too small, and it attracts the right type of person,” Fergusson said. “Most people here
by choice have made a decision at some point to put lifestyle over
financial gain.”