2022 Hall of Fame
Mike Petersen has spent his entire career in the family business, joining Petersen Aluminum Corp. in Elk Grove Village, Ill., after graduating from Colgate University in 1977. Over the years, he held many managerial positions, rising to president and CEO.
Petersen started as an inside salesperson to learn about the product line, before graduating to sales management and building out the company’s representative group. Now retired, Petersen was instrumental in the growth, development and success of the company, seeing the company revenues grow from less than $5 million to more than $260 million.
A Step Ahead
When Petersen started working at the company it was a sheet and coil supplier, selling only aluminum. The company added steel in 1980, after losing orders to a company that sold Kynar-coated steel. The company began manufacturing factory-formed roofing panels in 1982, and in 2008, added metal wall panels to their offerings. “Today, we actually sell more steel than aluminum even though our name is still Petersen Aluminum,” Petersen says. “It turned out to be a pretty good move.”
The company’s original color palette was five colors, including an anodizing line. Today, the company has 40 standard colors, including several metallic finishes. Petersen Aluminum became one of the first companies to market Fluropon coatings, leading the company to come up with the brand name PAC-CLAD.
When LEED construction became popular and cool coatings were introduced, Petersen says the company made an organized effort to change as many of their standard colors to cool options. “I think we were one of the first companies to have a cool color palette, and that was one of the seminal changes that we dealt with over time,” he says.
Additionally, Petersen acknowledged the development of portable rollformers as an opportunity instead of a threat and developed its PAC Association to provide slit coil to companies that invested in portable rollformers. They also developed a way for local rollformers to use their wind load testing, who in turn became marketers of Petersen’s panel profiles.
Marketing
Once the company had a brand name, one of the first things they did was invest in Sweets Catalog, which, at the time, was one of the only ways to go to market nationally. While the return on investment was hard to quantify, Petersen says it must have been working when they started getting in orders from places where they didn’t have any salespeople. “That was the beginning of our marketing programs, and one of the biggest things we ever did,” he says. “Basically, creating a brand like we did was probably the best return on investment I can really think of.”
Through the years the company has had a steady discipline of going to market through all kinds of media, including print and digital. And they kept at it, whether the economy was booming or in recession. “I think it’s most important to keep steadily marketing through the slower times in the economy,” Petersen says. “For one thing, you become more visible than your competition. The first thing people do is drop marketing programs to cut costs. And we’ve always found that the opposite works best for us.”
I think it’s most important to keep steadily marketing through the slower times in the economy. For one thing, you become more visible than your competition. The first thing people do is drop marketing programs to cut costs. And we’ve always found that the opposite works best for us.”
Association Work
Petersen has been involved in trade associations throughout his career, rising through the ranks of what was the National Association of Aluminum Distributors (NAAD), and becoming president for two years in the late 1990s. When the NAAD merged with the Metals Service Center Institute in the early 2000s, Petersen became chairman for a few years. He also sat on the boards of the National Glass Association and the Aluminum Association.
Long-Term Success
Petersen became president of Petersen Aluminum in 1987. In 2019, he sold the company to Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Carlisle Companies to secure its long-term health. “For us to be successful as a company with branches spread out over a national territory, I needed to find people who were entrepreneurial,” Petersen says. “I always looked for people who were smarter than me. We really have a discipline of hiring within and creating opportunities for people who are already part of our team. I look for people with a strong work ethic and really create an atmosphere where it’s fun to come to work.”
“Mike has been a trusted business partner and friend for over 25 years,” says Jeff Alexander, vice president of sales at Sherwin-Williams Coil Coatings, Minneapolis. “His integrity, along with that of his company, is second to none. Mike’s leadership at Petersen Aluminum not only led to a very successful company, but also contributed mightily to the growth of prepainted metal.”
“Mike is a second-generation business owner who operated in the same way as an entrepreneur does,” says Mike Weiss, vice president of Petersen Aluminum. “He worked hard, surrounded himself with exceptional people and took calculated risks at the right times. His career is one of great success, both personally and for the industry as a whole.
