Behind the Slate: The Craft Beneath Every Baker Roof 

When most people picture commercial roofing, they picture flat membrane systems. They don’t picture hand-laid slate from a quarry 1,800 feet beneath a Spanish mountainside, or bright copper flashing catching the light on a historic church bell tower. 

That’s the world Calvin Arrington works in every day. On a recent episode of Under the Roof, hosts Todd Kavanaugh and Matthew Elban sat down with Calvin to talk about the artisan side of the business. The conversation revealed just how much craftsmanship, planning, and care goes into roofs most people never think twice about. 

The Right Expert for the Right Roof 

Calvin leads several distinct teams: painted metal and standing seam crews, pre-engineered metal building specialists, a metal repair group that troubleshoots aging roofs, and a specialty team dedicated to slate, copper, and tile. Each one develops deep expertise in its own discipline. 

Calvin compares his role to running a motorsports team. He isn’t the one turning the wrenches. His job is making sure the right experts are in the right place at the right time. And for building owners, that specialization matters. As he puts it, choosing a specialist over a generalist for a complex roof is like choosing a cardiologist over a general practitioner when something serious is on the line. 

Preserving History, One Slate at a Time 

Two recent projects show what that expertise looks like in practice. 

The first is Hayes Barton Church in Raleigh’s Five Points neighborhood, finished in dark slate with bright copper flashing, a project Calvin counts among his personal favorites. The second is the Waldensian Presbyterian Church in Valdese, North Carolina, the team’s first project using North American slate. 

At the Waldensian church, the crew did something worth remembering. As they removed the old slate from the four-sided bell tower, they salvaged several original pieces and worked them into a centerpiece design on each facet of the new roof. Congregation members who helped fund the project signed their names, and those signatures were laser-engraved into the slate itself. 

Someday, generations from now, another crew will climb that tower to replace the roof. When they do, they’ll find those names, and they’ll know exactly who cared enough to preserve it. 

1,800 Feet Underground in Spain 

Where does slate of that quality come from? Calvin wanted to see for himself. 

Much of the slate and copper on Baker projects comes through a partnership with North American Slate, the distribution arm of a Spanish producer. Curious how the material reached such consistent quality, Calvin and a cross-section of the Baker team traveled to Spain to visit the source: a mine roughly 1,800 feet underground. 

Rather than clearing entire mountainsides the way traditional quarries do, the operation maps slate deposits in advance and mines them in careful sections, limiting the impact on the landscape above. Even with that precision, only about 11 percent of everything excavated becomes usable roofing material. 

The quality control is remarkably hands-on. Workers physically tap every finished block, listening for the dull sound that signals a hidden flaw. Any block that doesn’t ring true gets pulled before it ever reaches a job site. It’s the same standard we hold ourselves to. The material has to earn its place on the roof. 

Handmade Tile at Duke University 

Slate isn’t the only artisan material in the lineup. Through a partnership with an Ohio tile maker, Baker also installs clay tile, including long-running work at Duke University. 

Calvin describes watching craftsmen turn raw clay into finished tile by hand, with the same color-matching and attention to detail his own sheet metal shop brings to custom pieces. But the real complexity is in the layout. Tile roofs are designed so that color variation looks natural rather than blotchy, and that takes deliberate planning most people never notice from the ground. 

Or as Calvin puts it: “Random doesn’t happen by accident.” 

New Technology on the Metal Side 

Alongside the historic materials, Calvin’s group is pushing into new territory with the PMZ system, short for Peak Metal Z. It allows Baker to install a new standing seam metal roof directly over an existing one, using a notched framing member that bridges the old panels, adds insulation, and brings older pre-engineered buildings up to current structural code. 

For facility owners, the benefit is real. A full tear-off can shut down production and leave a building exposed to water mid-project. A metal-over-metal retrofit avoids opening up the structure at all. No downtime, no water intrusion risk, and a roof built to today’s standards. 

A Culture Built to Last 

Asked what excites him most about where the business is headed, Calvin points to his people as much as any product. His teams pair craftsmen with four decades of experience alongside newer employees just starting out, and he sees training as the way that expertise gets passed down as the industry evolves. 

It’s a fitting place to land for a conversation that was as much about people and legacy as it was about slate, copper, and metal. Because behind every roof, whether it’s a church bell tower in Valdese or a manufacturing facility getting a second life, are people who take pride in doing the work right. 

That’s been the standard since 1915.