Whenever I think of things gone wrong on a
retrofit roofing project I remember that day in Miami when David and I visited
Art and his boys (and girl … she ran the kettle). I was there doing my job as
the roofing equipment pro, and David ran the branch of my distributor.
We have enough problems with our image in the
roofing industry. Now Georgia-based roofing contractor American Shingle’s
Chapter 7 Bankruptcy filing is leaving a trail of homeowners, subcontractors,
and various other suppliers in the lurch over tens of millions of dollars worth
of insurance work that was never completed.
This column is commentary and contains some
opinions rather than complete details of the topic being covered. The topic is OSHA’s amended Part 1926 Subpart CC - Cranes and
Derricks in Construction.
I recently received a flurry of e-mails with news reports about a roofing contractor and his foreman in California being charged with involuntary manslaughter in the 2008 death of one of their workers. These charges were announced by the San Francisco District Attorney in April 2010. Co-workers and associates expressed shock at the news.
Recently we bore witness to a couple of major events
in the supply-chain sector of the roofing industry. Beacon Roofing Supply, the
first consolidator of roofing distributors to go public, was called out by
NASDAQ (where their stock is traded under the symbol BECN) and recognized in a
bell-ringing ceremony.
Writing on the topic of worker safety in this column a few issues back I casually mentioned that cutting back on marketing efforts in tough times is a bit like tossing out the clock to save time. While I certainly cannot take credit for coming up with this bit of wisdom, I do buy into it.
During a time in which trade shows have been reporting declining attendance and less than stellar results for exhibitors, the 2010 International Roofing Expo (IRE) somewhat bucked the trend in that the trade-show attendance was basically flat from the prior year and seminar attendance was actually up.
Roofing Contractor safety columnist Chip Macdonald of Best Safety, LLC, first raised the point at the beginning of this ever-lengthening recession. Dollars spent on anything not considered indispensable would be cut first, and for some that includes the safety program.
Little doubt that Topic “A” for the roofing industry continues to be the economy. Most roofing contractors I speak with express concerns about levels of business in the near future as well as down the road. “Down the road” is what has me thinking lately.
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