PLATTSBURGH -- Two members of the third generation of the family that owned the commercial and high-end residential roofing and sheet metal business Monahan & Loughlin Inc. are branching out on their own.

"My grandfather and his brother started the business in Hudson Falls and Glens Falls," said Brian Monahan, who with his brother, David, has acquired the Plattsburgh part of the company. "In the '50s, when the Air Force Base and the college came here, they put an office in Plattsburgh."

Other family members will maintain the Glens Falls branch of the business, which was founded in 1946, as a separate entity. "We just wanted to do stuff on our own," Monahan said.

The Plattsburgh business, as of May 5 called Monahan Brothers Inc., works on large commercial and residential projects from Watertown to New Hampshire, and there aren't too many big buildings in Plattsburgh that the Monahans haven't put a roof on over the years.

"If there's a commercial building in this town, it's got the Monahan name, 90 percent I would say," Monahan said. The new business will be "pretty much the same" as the old one, except it won't do metal duct work as the business had in the past.

"It's the same crews, the same people, the same quality of work," Monahan said. "There'll be a slightly different name on the door."

The new company employs 25 to 30 workers and usually has four or five jobs going at a time. Not only has the business been in family hands for three generations, but some of the employees have been there through three generations as well, a fact Monahan is especially proud of.

The future may also hold an expansion plan. The long North Country winters can be a slow time in the roofing business, and the brothers are considering opening an office somewhere in the Carolinas.

"We're actually researching the market and looking for a place," Monahan said, adding that he hopes a satellite branch can be opened there. He said he expects they will start by taking on some small projects and expand after that.

"Our main focus is Plattsburgh," Monahan said. "It will kind of fill in the blank spaces during the winter months."

No building is too much of a challenge for the Monahans, and they can do just about everything including copper with all its complicated soldering and cutting. They just completed the Lake Placid Lodge in Lake Placid and have worked on many colleges and nearly every school district north of Albany.

"If it's flat, we probably did it," Monahan said of the roofing projects.