Visionary playbook

Visionaries see potential where others don’t. They start with a clean sheet of paper and through foresight, creativity, passion and determination, they transform an idea into something tangible with measurable results. They not only use skills and their will to defeat challenges and challengers, but also, as Muhammed Ali once said: “The will must be stronger than the skill.”

In 2003, Chad Collins, executive vice president of Roofing Corp of America, Atlanta, started a roofing company called Bone Dry Roofing Co. in Athens, Ga. Today, the company is part of an organization that ranks in the top five roofing contractors in the U.S.

“I can’t overstate the value in having the ability to show up and persevere every single day even when you don’t want to,” he says. “If it’s important enough that you want to be successful at it, then you keep showing up.”

This month, Collins begins his term as NRCA’s chairman of the board, the highest-ranking officer in the association. (For a list of new officers, see “NRCA elects new officers and directors".)

“Chad is a visionary entrepreneur who built a successful roofing contracting business from scratch, overcoming headwinds and risks along the way,” says Doug MacRae, COO of Roofing Corp of America. “He will confidently guide NRCA priorities to what will deliver the most value for members, and he will be an excellent ambassador for roofing.”

Formation

Collins was born in Macon, Ga., where he and his older sister, Shannon, were raised by their parents, Wanda and Rodney. His father was a professional high school football coach, so the family moved around a bit but always stayed in Georgia. When Collins was in middle school, his father accepted a job as a head coach back in Macon.

He attended college at Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, where he played football for a couple of years before transferring to the University of Georgia, Athens. He wasn’t sure what degree to pursue, so a couple of older buddies recommended he obtain a bachelor’s of science degree in risk management and insurance because the school’s Terry College of Business Risk Management and Insurance program ranks No. 1 in the nation. After graduating in 1997, he accepted a job at an employee benefits firm.

“I worked there for about 10 seconds and knew that wasn’t what I was going to do,” Collins says.

While looking for another job, a friend who worked at Metalcrafts, Savannah, Ga., suggested Collins apply for a job there.

“That’s how I ended up in the roofing industry,” he says.

Collins worked with Allen Lancaster Jr., vice president of Metalcrafts and a former NRCA president, for three years. He started out in the service department and was tasked with figuring out the best way to handle calls from customers who needed help with leaking roofs and preventive maintenance.

“I loved navigating and growing into the preventive maintenance role because I got to experience firsthand what the frustrations were,” Collins says. “Unbeknownst to me, I would be starting my own roofing company a couple of years later.”

After getting engaged to his wife, Sabrina, who lived in Athens, Collins left Metalcrafts and moved to Athens to start Bone Dry Roofing.

“I felt incredibly prepared because I had been so forward-facing and conversational with customer problems, it made it easy for me to take that model and education I had learned at Metalcrafts and build a business around it,” Collins says. “I knew if I handled the customer service, preventive maintenance and service side well, that would lead to negotiated reroofs because I already had been taking care of those roofs.”

Structure

Since founding Bone Dry Roofing 23 years ago, Collins has grown the company into a full-service roofing contracting company serving Georgia and South Carolina with offices in Athens; St. Simons Island, Ga.; and Charleston, S.C. The company currently employs 85 employees.

“The Bone Dry Roofing family is a family when you’re away from family,” says Mary Eady, human resources manager for Roofing Corp of America. “It’s a flexible environment and a place where people feel welcome and heard. It’s also a fun place to work; that’s important, too.”

Employees say they often are in awe of the number of relationships Collins has developed and fostered within the community.

“He’s sort of like the mayor, always shaking hands with people; he knows everybody’s name,” says Christine Varnell, residential client services manager at Bone Dry Roofing.

Collins attributes much of Bone Dry Roofing’s success to what is affectionately called “the parking lot scan” rule of thought.

“We live in a small town, so we will run into clients at some point,” Collins explains. “I don’t want nor do I want our employees to ever enter a parking lot and have to scan the cars wondering whether they’re going to bump into somebody they had a bad business deal with. I want everyone to make every decision with confidence they can enter any parking lot knowing they did everything they could to service that customer the way they would want to be serviced.”

That informal mission statement has helped the business to become so successful, a private equity firm took notice.

Strategy

In spring of 2020, Collins received a voicemail that changed his professional life.

“When I got that random phone call from New York, I, more for my entertainment purposes, returned the call,” Collins laughs.

That 15-minute conversation with Soundcore Capital Partners led to Collins selling his company six months later.

“One of the reasons I was interested in selling is after doing the same thing for almost 25 years, I was ready for something different,” Collins explains. “And the other reason is I had watched private equity touch the distribution and manufacturing areas of the roofing industry, so I knew it was inevitable it was coming to the contractor side, and I preferred to be ahead of it.”

Weeks before the transaction to formally sell the company, Collins had questions, such as who would be running the day-to-day operations of the parent company, Roofing Corp of America. At the time, the private equity firm had only acquired one other company, The Original Roofing Company, Las Vegas.

“So there wasn’t much of a story to tell at that point. But I found out they were in the process of acquiring Innovative Roofing Group, Atlanta, and they were elevating Randy Korach, who had owned Innovative Roofing Group, into the CEO position at Roofing Corp of America,” Collins says. “I had known Randy, and we had a personal relationship. That really was the final positive piece of communication I needed. I knew Randy had both roofing contractor experience and a deep history on the material manufacturing side, so I felt really good about it.”

Bone Dry Roofing was the third company to be acquired under the Roofing Corp of America umbrella. About 18 months later, FirstService Corp., Toronto, a publicly traded company, acquired Roofing Corp of America.

“That FirstService transaction took us off the private equity treadmill and has been a blessing in a lot of ways,” Collins says. “That pivot is a major part of our story that makes us pretty unique in the marketplace. Nobody else was owned by a publicly traded company at the time, and that made us different in the eyes of people who were considering a transaction to join Roofing Corp of America and helped our growth trajectory.”

Part of Collins’ responsibilities with Roofing Corp of America is corporate development, which involves building relationships with other contractors and introducing them to the Roofing Corp of America business model.

“I joined Roofing Corp of America because of Chad,” says Nick Sabino, regional president of Roofing Corp of America, founder of Deer Park Roofing LLC, Cincinnati, and a former NRCA chairman of the board. “Chad introduced me to Randy Korach, and from that point forward I knew Roofing Corp of America was the right fit for me.”

There now are 16 company partners within Roofing Corp of America.

“Chad is a world-class relationship builder,” Korach says. “I value our partnership every day. He’s great to talk to about strategy and business priorities; he’s been a great partner. I’m grateful he’s on this journey with me.“

As Roofing Corp of America continues to grow, its goal is for each acquired company to maintain its identity.

“Roofing Corp of America doesn’t want to change how you became a company,” says Lisa Pye, national human resources manager for Roofing Corp of America. “That’s the beauty of it. It doesn’t want to change who you are as a company. We’re still a tight-knit group.”

Many Roofing Corp of America team leaders have a deep history with NRCA, including two former NRCA chairmen of the board—Sabino and Doug Duncan, regional president of Roofing Corp of America and former president of Nations Roof Illinois, Villa Park, Ill.

“I joined Roofing Corp of America after 21 years with a national roofing contractor,” Duncan says. “What stood out right away was the momentum and energy across the organization. There’s a real drive here to be a premier roofing contractor in the U.S., and you can feel that in how people approach their work every day.”

Previous NRCA leadership experience is what gives the Roofing Corp of America team a distinct advantage.

“NRCA leaders tend to have a view that their engagement at the association level is for the betterment and greater good of the industry and stakeholders,” Korach says. “They have chosen to contribute their time and energy, and we value those leadership traits.”

Key roles

Collins learned about NRCA while working at Metalcrafts.

“With Allen being a former NRCA president, he was quite involved with NRCA,” Collins says. “And when I started my business at Bone Dry Roofing, within the first year he reached out to me and said when the timing is right, he would love to help me get involved.”

In fall 2005, Collins attended his first NRCA event. Before Roofing Day in D.C. was launched in 2018, NRCA’s fall committee meetings were held in Washington, D.C., every other year so members could meet with their members of Congress on behalf of NRCA.

“I was one of the guests invited to participate,” Collins says. “I got to see a bit of the behind the scenes of how NRCA and the committee and leadership structure works. And I was hooked after that.”

The following year, Collins began serving on committees. Since then, he has served on and chaired numerous committees including government relations, PAC advisory, membership marketing, career path, contractor management, membership marketing and workforce development.

I got to see a bit of the behind the scenes of how NRCA and the committee and leadership structure works. And I was hooked after that.

“I have chaired more committees than I can think of, and I don’t know that I have a favorite because they are all so different,” Collins says. “What I have always enjoyed most is the personal and professional relationship building with fellow contractors, industry stakeholders and NRCA staff.”

Collins was elected to the board of directors in 2008 and served two three-year terms. In 2015, he was elected to the Executive Committee and served two two-year terms before serving as chairman of the board-elect in 2025. As chairman of the board, Collins wants to be a steward of and honor the legacy of NRCA leaders who have previously served.

“It’s not lost on me the sacrifice and service of those who have served in this position before me and how they have improved and professionally represented this industry,” Collins says. “They were so instrumental in helping younger generations see how important, professionally and personally, engagement and involvement in NRCA means. I am so thankful for that because it instilled in me a real passion for serving. To me, they set the standard of how to perform this job.”

Collins also appreciates the wisdom his predecessor, Alex Hernandez, president of Clark Roofing Co., Broadview, Ill., and NRCA immediate former chairman of the board, brought to the role.

“Alex is such a reserved and intentional decision-maker, I feel he is one of a few people in life that when he does talk, he has something to say and it’s always worth listening to,” Collins says. “His knowledge of the roofing industry is so vast. He’s such a great representative of the contractor base.”

According to Collins, a lack of trained roofing workers and the public’s perception of the trade remain top challenges facing the industry.

“Half the states don’t require a contractor to have a professional license to operate as a roofing contractor,” he says. “Roofing is a misunderstood profession. I would argue there is no other trade that is more challenging or requires more technical knowledge than the roofing industry.”

Programs like the Roofing Alliance’s partnership with Clemson University, Clemson, S.C., to offer a three-course professional training certification series in roofing and NRCA’s involvement with SkillsUSA,® a workforce development program that includes roofing featured in two national competitions, are helping raise awareness for the profession.

“But here’s the real challenge moving forward,” Collins says. “Where SkillsUSA and CTE have been successful, contractors have embraced the challenge and are using their time and energy to teach and train. When a student has been successful, there has been a roofing contractor next to him or her to teach how to roof. So the challenge is having enough technically competent teachers.”

Part of the resolution to that challenge is recruitment.

“Whether it’s technical resources, education training, membership support or marketing materials, there’s nowhere else a roofing contractor is going to find the range of resources NRCA offers,” Collins says. “If a roofing contractor is looking for an ‘easy’ button for operating daily and what they do in terms of resources and support, NRCA is the closest thing they are going to find.

“And that’s not even the greatest asset,” he continues. “It’s the relationships and connections you build with people from all over the country who do what you do, and you can bounce ideas off them and ask questions in a noncompetitive environment.”

When he finds time outside the professional environment, you’ll find Collins with his family.

Play concepts

Collins met his wife, Sabrina, through a friend.

“We both graduated from the University of Georgia, but we didn’t meet until years later,” Sabrina says. “He was living in Savannah at the time and came back to Athens to visit a friend.”

A few weeks later, they went on their first date to a piano concert. After dating for seven months, they became engaged. Eight months later, the couple were married on St. Simons Island in June 2003. They enjoy raising their two children—daughter, Josie (18), and son, Baynes (16).

“When Chad became a father, it was as if his whole world changed for the better,” Sabrina says. “He is a loving, caring, passionate father. I definitely saw a softer side come out.”

Collins says he has always tried to prioritize being a present father.

“The scariest thought to me is when my kids get older they’ll say their dad was always working,” he says. “So I’ve always tried to have a healthy balance. It’s possible to manage a business schedule to find time for things of value like family.”

The Collins children enjoy athletics, and Collins and his wife love to attend their sporting events. Josie is graduating high school this year, and she’ll be attending Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, N.C., where she will compete in track and field. Baynes plays football and basketball in high school and is planning to play college football when it’s his turn to head off to university.

“My favorite memories of growing up with my dad are summer vacations on St. Simons Island,” Baynes says. “When I was younger, we would throw the football around on the beach, and it was great to be with him in his happiest place.”

“My dad is my best friend,” Josie adds. “Whether it’s throwing the football in the yard or playing games on the beach, I am fond of any time I get to spend with him.”

The family also loves to travel via catamaran sailboats. Collins sails the boats himself.

“It’s a fun way to see different parts of the world, not from the beaches of a resort,” he says. “We started taking our kids with a few years ago because they had grown up hearing about it. And they love it, too.”

Collins says renting a sailboat is like renting a car. Every time he travels for NRCA or industry events, he adds a few days to the trips to take in the local scenery.

“We’ve seen some of the most beautiful places in the world because of roofing-related activities and travel,” he says. “From a work-play standpoint, it’s been a pretty cool balance that has worked well.”

Kick off

As Collins begins his term as chairman of the board, his decades of roofing experience, building and fostering relationships and strengthening alliances will make him a strong ambassador for NRCA and the industry.

“I hope Chad has as rewarding of an experience during his term as I and others have had in the role,” Duncan says. “I’m confident he’ll accomplish whatever is put in front of him, and he’ll lead with a steady hand. More than anything, he’ll continue to move the industry forward and represent the membership well.”

“I am honored to be asked to serve as chairman of the board by fellow contractors,” Collins says. “I’m lucky to serve now because I don’t think there’s ever been a stronger group of NRCA leaders. We are so fortunate to be surrounded by talented, energetic members who are passionate about what we’re doing. It’s a great time to be involved with NRCA.”

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