insulation
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Owens Corning is betting the house.
The company that made insulation pink spent $3.9 billion on doors. Its next act starts with a surprisingly small idea: make the builder’s job easier.
Carlisle found its future on the roof.
A company born making bicycle inner tubes sold its way out of diversification. Its next bet: building materials that save the contractor time and the owner energy.
QXO’s $30 billion bet on the last mile
Brad Jacobs bought his way into roofing, lumber, and insulation. Now QXO has to make those businesses work better together, one contractor and one delivery at a time.
Brian Chambers and the house that focus built
He learned Owens Corning from the shingles up. Now Brian Chambers is reshaping the Toledo manufacturer around roofing, insulation, and doors - and testing how much a company can gain by narrowing its ambitions.
National Lumber sells the missing piece: coordination.
A sheet of drywall is easy to buy. Getting it to the right floor, at the right moment, explains how a New England lumberyard became a $282.5 million acquisition.
HomeWorks Energy, Inc.
HomeWorks Energy built a sizable climate business around an unglamorous truth: before a house can go electric, somebody has to find the drafts, explain the rebates and do the work.
Sami Rahman
Sami Rahman is the CEO of CleanFiber, the Buffalo-based maker of high-performance cellulose insulation spun from recycled corrugated cardboard. A chemical and environmental engineer turned building-materials operator with 20+ years across James Hardie and ICP Group, he joined CleanFiber in January 2025 as President and General Manager and was elevated to CEO after sharpening its sales and operations. He is steering a company that ranked #1 in manufacturing on the 2024 Inc. 5000 list through a Series C raise and the ramp of a plant built to ship over three million bags a year.