About Us

          In May of 1991, Archie and Fay McDow opened Golden Rule Fasteners, Inc. as a standard fastener supply company. Archie chose this business name as a reminder to himself to always treat everyone, both customers and vendors, the way that he would want to be treated. For the first few years, they ran this business out of the living room of their home while homeschooling two young boys. Archie would load boxes of screws, nuts, bolts, etc. into the trunk of his old Chevrolet Caprice Classic and make deliveries to hardware stores and furniture manufacturers around the Southeastern United States. Over time he was able to add woodworking screws into his inventory and began selling to manufacturers of staircases, gazebos, and cabinets.

 

          While Archie was out seeing customers, Fay would answer phone calls on the business line that was set up in the "office", which was actually the spare bedroom that had recently become available when Art left for college at Auburn University. At night, Fay took accounting courses at a local school to learn how to handle the bookkeeping for a brand new startup business. She would spend her days juggling the tasks of being a homeschool teacher, inside sales rep, and an accountant.

 

          In 1995, Art McDow moved back to Alabama from his home outside of Atlanta, GA to join his dad at Golden Rule Fasteners. Art had noticed the rapidly growing metal roofing industry, and he suggested that we should add a line of painted screws for metal roofing and carports. This product line quickly became our best-seller and we began to carry many accessories for metal roofing such as pipe flashings, caulk, butyl tape, closure strips, and ridge vent material. It was at this time that the company became more of a roofing supply company than a fastener supply company. Subsequently, we began to expand our market coverage by calling on people, and advertising, in areas outside of the Southeast. We began selling to rollformers and carport manufacturers from Florida to Idaho and in many, many areas in between.

 

          After graduating high school in 2004, David McDow also joined the family business as a full-time employee. After spending a couple of years in the warehouse, he began working in both inside and outside sales. In addition to rollformers and carport manufacturers, he also began calling on some of the larger roofing supply chains. We began supplying a few of these stores with our pipe flashings for metal roofing, but soon noticed a major need for a product that nobody had developed for the shingle roofing industry.

 

          Upon realizing this need, Art and David began working together to design a retrofit flashing for shingle roofs that would wrap around obstructed penetrations, such as the electrical mast, where a standard pipe flashing could not be used; it also had to integrate with the shingle system to allow for proper rain run-off. The design was finalized, and we made our first sale of the Residential Zip-Seal in 2008. After a couple of years, we added a new smaller version that we call our GoldenSeal Retrofit Flashing. We have been awarded three patents on these products (U.S. Patent No. 8141303, 8464475 & 8534002).

 

          Today, Golden Rule Fasteners is a wholesale distributor of painted and unpainted screws, pipe flashing, retrofit flashing (a.k.a. "split boot"), caulk, butyl tape, expanding foam tape for hips and valleys, closure strips, and more, for both the metal roofing and shingle roofing industries. We also offer fasteners for portable buildings, gazebos and other woodworks, portable signs, and the staircase industry.

 

          Our name still serves as a constant reminder for all of our employees that we need to treat everyone the way that we want to be treated in all aspects of our business. Whether it’s pulling orders with fast & accurate service in our warehouse, greeting customers with a smile when we’re out on the roads, or just simply remaining kind and respectful over the phone, we truly hope that you will be satisfied in all of your dealings with Golden Rule Fasteners.