Over the last two years, there has been increasing talk about the share of Latinos in the United States construction labor force. Less noticed has been the building envelope’s entrepreneurial class of Latino contractors carving out a space for themselves.

As Latino contractors increase their purchasing power, manufacturers and suppliers have followed suit, tailoring outreach efforts to a burgeoning market, and it now appears that a shift from tangential to mission-critical is afoot.

While Latino representation in roofing remains more predominant in the field than in the boardroom, the underpinnings of America’s origin story are as true for Latinos now as they were for previous generations of skilled trade immigrants who leaped from craftsmen to CEOs.

In construction’s not-too-distant past, Italians were once as synonymous with masonry. So, too, with Irish and Chinese immigrants, each tied to rail construction of the 19th century.

In fact, according to the Stanford Graduate School of Business’s 2023 State of Latino Entrepreneurship report, Latino-owned employer businesses in the construction industry are over-indexed by three points compared to their white counterparts. The outpace is stark given that, according to the 2023 American Business Survey, the U.S. is home to 4.7 million Latino-owned firms versus 19 million White-owned firms.

Using Census Bureau statistics, the report determined that between 2007 and 2022, Latino-owned businesses (with employees) increased by 57%, while White-owned businesses (with employees) grew by 5%. And still, challenges remain.

According to estimates by the National Association Home Builders trade group, the share of Latinos making up the construction industry has climbed from about 20% to more than 30% in just over a decade.
Graph courtesy of the NAHB

An Emergent Leader

Amparo Sancen has graced the pages of Roofing Contractor magazine before. She’s a roofing contractor whose pull-her-up-by-her-bootstraps grit helped found her firm, Sancen Roofing, in Richardson, Texas, in the early 2000s.

She has also spoken at RC’s Best of Success about the struggles she, like other Latinos, faced leaping from fieldman to foreman. Yet, the progress between her first BOS appearance in 2022 and next month’s 20th-anniversary event (in Bonita Springs, Fla., Dec. 6-8) is striking even as the demographics remain similar.

The attention paid to Latinos in the roofing industry appears greater now, and Sancen’s role can’t be overstated. In a recent interview for our newly launched Techos y Más eNews, she opened up about the road to recognition her Latino peers now travel, one she has helped pave — and continues to expand.

For those unfamiliar with the dynamo, Sancen founded her roofing company before being forced to fall back and retrench as a subcontractor after business slowed. Her drive kept her going while she learned how to navigate the challenges being a Latina posed, including overcoming being taken less seriously because she is a woman.

The hard-fought credibility gains women have made in roofing over the past several years, while incremental, still gave Sancen — through a consultancy she formed in 2022 called Latinos En Roofing — the ear of industry leaders.

In the two years since LER was founded, Sancen recalls how that single gathering of just 10 women discussing practical questions they had about starting careers in the industry has morphed into what is quickly becoming a national network.

“We discussed practical questions like insurance, dealing with inspections and other useful things,” she said. “From there, those women brought their husbands and others who were interested, and we went from 10 to 50 people very quickly. It grew organically into a networking group where people would share advice, contacts and best practices.

“When we first began, nobody discussed the challenges Latinos in the roofing industry faced, from training and instructions written in Spanish for those whose English wasn’t proficient enough to understand sometimes complex ideas in a foreign language,” she said.

As she put it, the Latino community had been longing for this type of focused attention on its needs, which includes accommodation by some of the industry’s largest suppliers and manufacturers.

“My community was hungry for this, and before long, we began holding day-long training sessions in Dallas,” she said. “From Texas, we started expanding into nearby states and through social media, we now have a presence on a national level.”

The organization has expanded so rapidly that Sancen said she recently decided to hand off daily operations of her roofing firm to her daughter to keep up with the demands the movement has placed on her time.

“Latinos want to grow their businesses, and they have a dream, but they don't know how to start,” she said. “Now, I focus 100% on Latinos En Roofing and my mission — my vision — is to get every single Latino who wants to own their own roofing business [involved].

“These roofers want to grow; they have dreams of how they can scale their business,” Sancen added. “They want to have a legacy for their kids, and I think, for me, that's a huge part of my passion, which is to bring this opportunity for my community, just because I see I can do it for my kids; and my kids have better opportunities, and I can help do the same thing for other families.”

Gathering Critical Mass

More than 330 years ago, Sir Isaac Newton proposed that every particle in the universe attracts every other particle with a force proportional to their masses, a law not relegated to the cosmos.

In 2022, SRS Distribution launched its “Para Latinos” lounge, a dedicated space at the International Roofing Expo for Latino contractors to network. The distributor — purchased last June by The Home Depot corporation for $18 billion — also started a new awards program called “Premios Éxito” (“Contractor Success Awards” in English) to recognize Latino contractors in categories like Contractor of the Year and Community Hero.

SRS collaborated with manufacturers, including IKO, GAF, CertainTeed and TAMKO, for the IRE expo and has replicated it in subsequent IREs. Plans are to open the Para Latinos lounge again during the 2025 IRE in San Antonio, Texas, next February.

ABC Supply and Beacon, which, along with SRS, comprise roofing’s ‘Big 3’ supply distributors, have also begun developing robust Spanish-language outreach efforts.

New Jersey-based manufacturer GAF was in the vanguard. In fall 2022, RC’s then-Editorial Director Rick Damato, in a blog about GAF’s efforts, wrote: “Today, more and more Latino roofers from 20 years ago are taking off their tool belts and looking to own and operate their own roofing business. Having a forum where these contractors can learn from experts and other contractors, as well as the excellent networking opportunity, is going to be key to their success.”

Roofing supplier Tubos announced earlier this year that it would begin offering instruction videos in Spanish on its website. The same is true for Owens Corning. In May, the manufacturer's “Owen Corning Academy” announced it would begin offering materials in Spanish, billing it OCU 2.0.

“We continue to invest in online and in-person training resources for the Latino contractor, and most recently launched our partnership with the Latino Claims Academy, helping Spanish-speaking contractors maximize their opportunity in the insurance and storm-related business,” Jon Gardner, Owens Corning’s senior leader, strategic partnerships and learning and development, said when the announcement was made.

Alan Lopez of GAF (far left) with Noreen Spuhler and Sancen at a GAF Latinos in Roofing event.
Image courtesy of Jill Bloom

Latina Rising

Sancen isn’t starry-eyed and knows continuing to pave the way forward for her fellow Latino contractors is a tough row to hoe. Not the least of which is the notion that a woman — a Latina — is the one moving the ball down the field to the endzone.

“I'm a woman, and just [having] to prove I know what I'm doing — using the struggles I’ve been through and still see right now that my community faces — is not much different than it was 14 years ago when I first started,” she says.

She added that creating Latinos En Roofing has been akin to making a map for those now up and coming, showing them where to avoid potholes and giving advice on not repeating some of the mistakes she had to navigate during her career.

Latinos En Roofing holds seminars and has since partnered with industry stalwarts like ABC Supply Co. and GAF. The latter company recently held its third “Latinos in Roofing” summit this year in Thakerville, Okla., where more than 300 Latino contractors spent a day attending breakout sessions and learning best practices from industry pros and manufacturer representatives.

Her group has also partnered with the National Roofing Contractors Association to ensure that content is available in Spanish and that training opportunities exist for native-Spanish-speaking contractors.

Her latest project, Latinos University, offers online seminars on issues ranging from working with materials to best practices, sales techniques, and running a roofing company.

“We have a training course on how you can learn the insurance process,” she cites as one example. “We connect with public adjusters, attorneys, sales training, marketing, using Google as a resource, and so much more,” she says. “We have all the connections and want to be a central resource for Latinos as they move their careers forward.”