Content Is King: Double Ribble

The first time I remember meeting Reid Ribble was at an IRE show where he was taking on all comers at a pink ping-pong table. He was then past president of the National Roofing Contractors Association (NRCA) as well as president of the Ribble Group in Kaukauna,Wis., a roof-contracting business he ran for 30 years.

Before running for office, Congressman Reid Ribble ran a roofing company. He was president of the Ribble Group in Kaukauna, Wis., and also served as NRCA president.

He’s now serving in Congress. Ribble got so fed up with the way things worked in Washington he decided to run for office and change things from the inside. In 2010, running as a Republican, Ribble was elected to the House as the representative of Wisconsin’s 8th Congressional District. He’s now running for re-election, and he recently took some time out in between votes to talk to Roofing Contractor about his road to Congress, his priorities on the Hill and his current re-election effort. Check out the full story in Roofing Contractor.

During the interview, Ribble thanked those in the roofing industry for helping him get elected to the first public office he ran for. “I was fortunate that I had so many friends in the roofing industry that knew me and knew of me that helped me get kick-started and offered advice and counsel,” he said.

Ribble is working to ensure things in Washington run more smoothly. Along with fellow Republican Scott Rigell and Democrats Jim Cooper of Tennessee and Kurt Schraderof Oregon, Ribble has formed a bipartisan committee named the Fix Congress Now Caucusto explore ways to improve the institution. “People ought to be offended that the Congress can’t even pass a budget,” he said. “How is it that we can all get paid but not pass a budget? These are the structural problems that need to be corrected.”

“We believe that the Congress owes the people a budget each and every budget cycle and therefore we have sponsored legislation that says, ‘No budget, no pay.’ If the congress doesn’t pass a budget, members of Congress don’t get paid. Now these are the types of things that get all my colleagues nervous, but they are the types of things that we need to talk about.”

Now, that’s the type of common-sense thinking that you’d expect from someone who ran a roofing business.

 For more information about Congressman Reid Ribble, or to offer support for his re-election campaign, visit http://ribble.house.gov/.