Rick Damato

Ken Hendricks, perhaps more than any of the upper-echelon leaders in the roofing industry, really knew, respected and understood the roofing contractor. He was one. He never forgot where he came from and never veered from his vision to do the very best he could for the people in the industry that he grew up in and loved. His perspective was at once crystal clear and unique - truly one of a kind.

It is evident to me that 2008 is going to be the kind of year that will require a great deal of planning followed by some remarkable execution to achieve success in business and life. Planning and measuring always bring about better results, but my senses tell me not to fool around this year.

Here we are years beyond a pair of horrible hurricane seasons (2004 and 2005), and the fallout continues to take shape. Our good friends in Florida have been hit with a new rule that has many residential reroofing contractors in a real pickle. In spite of common sense and efforts by roofing and other contractors in the state, it seems that the insurance lobby prevailed on the Florida legislature to cook up a “windstorm loss mitigation” statute.

As this issue of Roofing Contractor hits the street, we find ourselves in the middle of the college football season. What’s that got to do with your roof-contracting business? Not much, but a few parallels do come to mind.

Mergers, acquisitions, consolidations and various other forms of organizational blending that have taken place over the roofing industry’s past have not always been beautiful things. In fact, some ended up looking more like what happens when two trains merge head on at 70 miles per hour.

According to a report by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, workplace fatalities occurred at a rate of 3.9 per 100,000 workers in 2006. The report breaks U.S. workplace fatalities down into a number of classifications, and while roofing is not the most dangerous of occupation, it maintains a top 10 rating in this grim report.

In today’s world, roofing contractors are not just “roofers,” and Roofing Contractor is not just a magazine. The demands placed on you as a roofing contractor are manifold and complex. You need information (a lot of it) to succeed in the roofing business.

You work hard for nearly two decades building a business that, while boasting of considerable past success, continues to thrive. What do you do for a second act? Ron Newton of Atlanta is taking a key component of his operation and is re-engineering it to form a completely new enterprise.

Noticed something on a recent morning jog that I never noticed before. The objects of my attention were two homes about a block apart. Both homes look good, but one has a feature that sets it apart from the other - really sets it apart.

In all of my 33 years working in the roofing industry, the discussion of contractor registration and certification has never been off the table. But now there are things going on in our world that, if local and state authorities pay attention, may bring about changes that many in the industry have been clamoring for these many years.