Structural Glass Walls- Meet Jeff Haber W&W Glass Engineered Solutions

This Martineau Minute interview features Jeff Haber, one of the managing partners at New York metro based W&W Glass. W&W Glass is one of the largest metal and glass companies in the New York metropolitan area and the largest supplier of structural glass systems in the country.

With over 70 years of experience, they specialize in the design and installation of various building enclosure systems including, stick built curtain walls, pre-glazed unitized curtain walls, structural glass facades and custom metal and glass enclosure systems.

M&Co Sales Representative Mitch Hawkins and Jeff Haber chat about the innovative architectural glass work they produce, their formation of W&W Glass Engineered Solutions and current glazing trends.  

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• "For years, we were the Pilkington Planar distributors here in North America. That relationship came to an end at the end of last year. And now as we have launched our own W&W Glass Engineered Solutions, we've really taken advantage of the in-house engineering expertise that we have."
• "being able to offer higher performing glass systems in bigger spans is really where the market has taken us lately. Better insulated glass with larger spans that are higher performing from a thermal performance, solar control performance is really where the market has pushed us lately. Trying to comply with building codes and energy models and bird safety and all of that type of thing is really where we're going right now.."
  
  

Martineau Minute:  Jeff Haber, Managing Partner W&W Glass 

Transcript:

Mitch Hawkins:

Hello everyone and welcome to the Martineau Minute. I'm Mitch Hawkins with Martineau & Co. And today's episode features Jeff Haber with W&W Glass. Our team at Martineau & Co are the Sales Reps here in the Northeast for W&W Glass Engineered Solutions. Jeff, you guys have been a great supporter and partner of ours here. And thanks for joining me on today's episode.

Jeff Haber:

Thanks for having me this morning. I appreciate it.

Mitch Hawkins:

So the best place for us to start is just a quick intro for our viewers. If you could give me a brief intro to yourself personally and W&W Glass Engineered Solutions, that'd be great.

Introduction to W&W Glass

Jeff Haber:

Sure. Thanks for having me this morning. So I'm Jeff Haber, as you said, from W&W. I'm one of the managing partners here and I've been here for almost my entire glass career over 30 years. And we're one of the largest contract glaziers in the New York City metro area and in the northeast. We've been in business as a family run business, and now as an employee owned business over 45 years. We've got 60 people here in our office in the New York metro area and 200 trained craftsmen, union ironworkers and glaziers working in the field. So we've got a very big staff of great people working for us.

And we do a little bit of everything, everything from unitized curtainwall to storefronts to entrances, custom, all kinds of ornamental metal and glass, you name it, runs the gamut. Triple glazing, electrochromic glazing, anything cutting edge within the industry limits. We like to push the edge, push the envelope, anything to do with that exterior building skin, core and shell really lends itself to what we do.

Mitch Hawkins:

And obviously Martineau & Co has gotten involved with you guys in all the systems that you're doing on that main floor and it's been really fun for us to get into it.

Launch of W&W Glass Engineered Solutions-Structural Glass Walls

Jeff Haber:

Sure. I mean, for us and where our relationship really has blossomed together has been on those podium type systems, on those engineered solutions that we sell. For years, we were the Pilkington distributors here in North America. That relationship came to an end at the end of last year. And now as we have launched our own W&W Glass Engineered Solutions, we've really taken advantage of the in-house engineering expertise that we have. And we've launched our own systems now that really are product agnostic where we're able to offer the marketplace engineers, architects, facade consultants and developers, a wider range of systems which are not dependent on any one manufacturer, where we're able to bring them our 40 years of experience. And basically offer them a solution that fits their needs with a wide range of glass manufacturers, best in class manufacturers with our own in-house engineering. And as you've seen from the presentations that we've done together on the jobs that we're chasing, really be able to offer them a totally dynamic system of architectural glass and metal to fit whatever application they want.

Mitch Hawkins:

That was a great segue way, because I was just going to ask you for three advantages to working with W&W, but I think you just stated them all right there. I know there's more, but that's really a wonderful intro to what you guys do. Before we leave everybody here, I'll ask what's one thing that's new and innovative that you guys are working on that you want people out there to know about?

Current Trends in Commercial Glazing

Jeff Haber:

I think it changes fairly often with the marketplace, but for us, I think really being able to offer higher performing glass systems in bigger spans is really where the market has taken us lately. Better insulated glass with larger spans that are higher performing from a thermal performance, solar control performance is really where the market has pushed us lately. Trying to comply with building codes and energy models and bird safety and all of that type of thing is really where we're going right now.

Mitch Hawkins:

That's perfect. Well, Jeff, thank you so much for joining me today. For those of you watching, feel free to reach out to either myself or Nicole Martineau for any questions or new opportunities that pop up. Thanks for watching. And Jeff, thanks for joining.

Jeff Haber:

Thanks for having me. Have a great day.