Roofed Right America
429 W. Boden St., Milwaukee • www.roofedright.com
Year Founded: 2006
Product or Service Offered: Innovative commercial roofing, sheet-metal, masonry restoration and construction services in the Midwest.
President: Khary Penebaker
Owners: Ricardo Herrera, Adam Brissman, Joshua Sparks
Projected 2016 Revenue: $14.5 million
Target Clientele: Commercial and industrial property owners and developers seeking technical fixes to complex building envelope problems designed and implemented turnkey by our seasoned waterproofing experts.
What has fueled your company’s growth?
“Training and retaining the best people is our success strategy: we have over 75 percent of the same employees working here from the day we started. Our process usually involves bringing employees into the company with no prior construction experience, then giving them the opportunities to learn new skillsets to advance not only their technical and installation prowess, but also their place as invaluable assets at our company. The multiple paths for advancement and differing skillset opportunities are coupled with the feeling of complete respect and family atmosphere we offer here at Roofed Right. In turn, we have employees who take safety seriously, perform their job functions at extremely high levels and, most of all, are people our clients are genuinely delighted to interact with.”
What is the biggest obstacle to your company’s growth?
“There are two ways to look at obstacles in the construction industry. The relative length of time it takes to train and deploy new tradesmen—it can be several years before they reach the highest skill levels—is definitely our limiting factor. This, in turn, leads to what many in the reputable construction industry would most likely point to as the largest problem, which is disreputable and unskilled roofing/sheetmetal contractors encouraging building owners to cut corners in specifying improper materials, methods or simply breaking building codes to lower the upfront cost to the building owner.
Who are the business people you admire and why?
“I am continuously impressed by the leadership team at Google for their leadership in projects few have the courage to undertake, many which aim to advance the plights of the people who need it the most in the world. Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Elon Musk are some people who seem committed to helping people as a whole through their business activities and that’s the vision we have here at Roofed Right as well: the business is the people in it, and it exists to help all of them while increasing benefits to society as a whole. It’s not a zero sum game here and that is what we instill in all our employees.”
What is the outlook for your industry?
“It is fortunate that our industry serves a need rather than a desire. Protecting building assets is typically a high priority, and it is a stable strong market. The market is continuing the recovery from deferred capital investment in buildings from the recession, but is starting to level off and return to pre-recession levels. We are also seeing better educated owners, for the most part, who are beginning to investigate products claims and contractor qualifications much more in-depth, which is leading to better outcomes for the building owner and the area in general.”
