4 Questions with Chris Meyer, president of Turner Roofing
Chris Meyer is owner and president of Turner Roofing and
Sheet Metal Inc. The full-service residential and commercial roofing company
launched in 1966 and is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
1. How did you get into the roofing business?
In 1996 I went to work
for a window company in Houston, Texas, as an outside salesperson. One of my
cold calls in 1998 was on a nationwide wholesale roofing distribution company
by the name of ABC Supply. The district sales manager at the time allowed me to
come in to discuss the opportunity of carrying our window line.
Our first meeting went very
well. He called me back for a second meeting, at which time he told me he was
not interested in windows but rather was wondering if I was interested in
coming to work for them in a management capacity.
Two weeks later I was the
assistant manager in a wholesale roofing company and had no clue about anything
that had to do with roofing. I worked for them for 10 years before acquiring
Turner Roofing in January 2008.
2.
Turner Roofing is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. What’s the
company’s secret to longevity?
We have six employees who have been here 30 years, 5
employees with 20-plus years and several others with 10-plus years. When a
customer that used us 10 years ago and then calls us back for a new roof and
can speak to the same person they did originally, that’s comforting for him or
her.
We pride ourselves on doing
great work at a fair price. We are also very diverse — meaning we do
residential new construction, residential re-roof, commercial new construction,
re-roof commercial, and have both residential repair crews and commercial
repair crews.
3.
In what ways has Turner Roofing changed over the decades?
Like all companies we had to adapt to new building codes,
specifically with safety. OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration)
has really pushed all roofing companies to change the way we run our safety
programs.
Computers and the Internet are
by far the biggest game changers. Not only does the technology allow quick
communication, it also opens up the door for homeowners to become much more
educated about products and companies.
Labor is the other big change.
For more than 30 years, our employee makeup was 95 percent white males. Today
it is the opposite. Most of our employees now are Hispanic.
4.
How does severe weather season impact your business?
Spring weather affects our business in many different ways.
Residentially, as we have storms like the other night, we receive a lot of
calls asking us to come and inspect their roofs for possible wind and hail
damage. Incoming calls follow storms, but most of the time there is very little
damage across a large area. It is mostly localized to a certain geographical
area.
Spring storms also affect our
commercial roofing department. On Wednesday, following the storm that came
through Tuesday night, we were out in south Bixby at a strip center where most
of the roof blew off. They needed to get it cleaned up that day so that their
tenants could get their businesses open.
From NRCA
Trenton H. Cotney
Florida Bar Certified Construction Lawyer
Trent Cotney, P.A.
407 N. Howard Avenue
Suite 100
Tampa, FL 33606
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