Details

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What is your position within your company?
I am sole owner of Interbay Roof Inspection Consultants, Bothell, Wash.

Why did you become a part of the roofing industry?
When I was 14 years old, I left the orphanage I was placed in as a child because my parents could not afford to feed five kids. I worked on a farm driving a combine for $1 a day. One day, I went to the farm labor employment office to find a different farm job. A roofing truck drove by, and the driver asked whether I was interested in working for a roofing company.

What was your first roofing experience?
Tearing off a roof system and shoveling a lot of dirt into the trash shoot. At the end of each day, I got fired. The next morning at 5:30 a.m., I'd get a call from the roofing contractor asking why I was not there loading the truck. It was not easy in those days working in the roofing industry.

What is the most unusual roofing project you've performed?
I helped complete the installation of the false ceiling at St. James Cathedral, Seattle. It is a false-dropped ceiling held up by wires located about every 18 inches in all directions.

When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a millionaire by the time I was 45 years old.

What is the most high-tech thing in your house?
The computer with Internet—I hate it with a passion. If you are not on the Internet today, you are not considered a living person.

List three words that best describe you.
Honest, fair and knowledgeable

If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
I would take another two- to three-month cruise on a 40- to 50-foot yacht to Glacier Bay, Alaska. There, the biggest worry of each day is what we are going to have for dinner and going out and catching it. My second choice is Cambodia, where my wife was born.

What three items always are in your fridge?
Milk, raisin bread and peanut butter

What is your biggest pet peeve?
Roof consultants or roofing contractors who think they know everything because they either passed a professional roof consultants test or are approved by a manufacturer. I have found too many manufacturer mistakes on newly installed roof systems.

What quality do you most like in a person?
Honesty

If you could invite any three people (dead or alive) to dinner, whom would you invite?
My mother, my ex-father-in-law and my sister's husband—we were good friends. All have passed away.

What is your roofing industry involvement?
I was an NRCA director for two three-year terms. I was a founder, as well as a former president and board member, of the Washington State Roofing Contractors Association.

People would be surprised to know …
I went to school for only six years. I quit high school after seven weeks. Today, all you hear is that you need a high school or college education. I do not believe this. All it takes is a lot of hard work. Roofing, you may say, has been my whole life. Being involved with NRCA also has helped a lot. And, at 79 years old, I still am working as much as the calls come in. I feel like I am 40 years old, and I am still the only person here who does all inspections, reports, specifications, typing, etc. I get up on the roofs of all our projects.