HELP! PROFIT MARGIN QUESTION.

Found this in the Archives. From 2008 I think. Could this be the best topic on profit ever? Do those of you still here still stand by your opinions? Where are those absent guys today? Miss 'em

Onarooftop: Help, Profit margin Question! Ok. I need some help. I need to know how much profit I should be making, or should expect to make. I had 700,000 worth of sales last year, but I sunk all the profits back into the business. My profit margin was extremely low. I will have one employee, which is my brother. He will take care of the books and office work. Between the two of us what should we be bringing home at the end of the year, and how much should we have left for the business. This is based on having the same sales as last year. We are raising our prices this year, and job costing thru QuickBooks contractor to have a better idea what we are making or not making per job. All comments appreciated. Thanks.

theroofinggod: I would look at 15-20% after all things are paid, including yours, and your brothers salaries

Dr.ROOF: Gross sales mean nothing Kyle. Multi-million dollar companies go BROKE all the time. You have 2 main components to every job. FIRST one is profit. I know everybody puts that last. But dude, If I'm not making a profit, my trucks don't move. As soon as I know what the job looks like and how many days it will take, I fill in my profit field on my estimate. Everything else are your COSTS. You can break that down however you like. Basically everything that isn't PROFIT is COST. Your office, trucks, computer, secretary...everything that your business needs to break even...pay all the bills including all overhead. However you calculate that depends on your system. If you are using your PROFIT, to pay your COSTS, then you need to take a closer look at what your COSTS are. A yearly budget is a good thing to do. Then you will have a target number. Once you have a few years of data, you will be able to do a forecast for the next year to come. The historical data can be very helpful.

Bored yet?

Onarooftop: TRG, so that would be the profit left in the business account?

Dr. Roof. No, not boring. This is my main weakness, and what I need to learn to track better. Instead of going like the maniac I can be sometimes, and not looking back. I have always thought, more sales, more sales, and more sales. But, the total sales doesn't make much of a difference at the end of the year if I don't have a good amount leftover in the bank, and able to pay myself and brother a good wage. I have only been out on my own for three solid years. I have a lot to learn on the business end.

Dr.ROOF: Most new businesses fail in the first 5 years. If you want to last for 3 more, put profit first.

Mike H: Kyle,

Here's my suggestions: 1. Don't ask someone else what you should be making. Ask yourself. Then build it into the jobs. 2. Sit down with your books and determine EXACTLY what your total costs were last year. 3. Now add the profit you arrived at in #1, for both you and your partner. 4. Make sure you also add money for the company.

Now how do you arrive at your sales price?

What I do every year is take 100% of every cost that was not labor or material. I divide that amount by the total amount of labor paid that year. I end up with an overhead figure that is a specific percentage of labor. Then I use that number as my overhead calculation for every estimate the next year. If you're not paying hourly labor, then you need some other way of doing it. Divide by total number of squares, total number of crew days... but make sure it's consistent. Then you gotta figure out how to sell at the price you need.

pgriz: Ok, Kyle, look at it this way. For an investment to be considered good, you'll need to get back at least 10% per year. With the risk that you take on as a business owner, you probably should be getting a risk premium, and considering a net profit of 15-20% per year. A portion of this becomes working capital for next year's expansion, and a portion should end up in your pocket as the dividends of the owner.

Now, in the traditional method of bookkeeping, you will have your gross sales (revenues) less your cost of goods (cost of materials, direct labor, job-related sales and marketing expenses) giving you a Gross profit. This should probably be in the 30-40% range. From this, you deduct your general expenses (office costs, your salary as the manager, your brother's salary, and any other general expense), leaving you with the desired 15-20% net profit (before taxes). After you pay the income taxes on it, you then decide how much to retain to fund future growth, and how much to extract and pay yourself a dividend.

Another way to do the exercise is the way MikeH does, since he has a relatively stable man-hour total each year, and allocate the overhead by man-hour. Then your gross profit and your net profit are essentially the same. I agree with Dr. Roof. Gross sales are meaningless unless you are getting the desired end-result. Arbitrarily, let's assume your average job sell for $10,000. If you are paying a sales commission of 10%, and you want to have a gross margin of 40%, then your direct costs (material and labor) cannot exceed 50% (100%-10%-40%). So your direct costs are $5,000, with $1,000 to be paid as sales commission, and $4,000 remaining as the gross profit. Let's also assume you make ten such sales each month. That means that in the average month you have $40,000 as gross profit. Out of this you pay your overhead. If we want to have 20% as the net margin, then your overhead expenses cannot exceed 30% of gross revenues, or $30,000. That would leave the company with a net profit of $20,000 for the month. Of course, your mileage will vary.

Egg: I was really proud of myself after my first year and went into the bank to get a consolidation loan. The banker was a kind man. He looked at the box I had brought in and said "Hmm... The invoice method...that's ok for the moment but 'they' are going to want to see some real books in the future. He gave me my loan and I repaid it.

I was really proud of myself after several years of increasing gross and spreading reputation and wanted to get a line of credit to make things go smoother. The old banker had retired and the new bank manager sat down with me. He was a kind man, too. He looked at my books and he said, "You're doing really well, but this shows me that you are working very, very hard and not making much profit. There's going to come a time when you will want to slow down a little bit. I'll give you the line of credit but I'm telling you I don't want to see evergreen credit. If you run it up and leave it up, I'm going to call it in." I didn't and he didn't.

I'm not the best at making money, never will be. I've taken jobs at cost before, just because I wanted them and at least made wages. I don't consider wages profit, even though that's how they show up on your tax return if you are not structured as a corporation and paying yourself as an employee.

Doc and Mike are right. They are right on and that's where the money will be found. But you can play "chicken" like I did, and do ok. You feel the pulse of your biz activity, cut into what you want to make and take the job as a loss leader now and then. Hold your line stubbornly now and then. But in your mind separate your wage from your profit and keep your eye on what's happening as the year goes by. And while you're at it, don't pork out on your wage and don't pretend you are your own slave either. None of this is cast in stone in the beginning. You just want to survive. Taking too much work is a good way to crash. One of the things nobody told me about is the third category. There is cost. There is profit. And then there is contingency fund. This is money that will be snagged out of the profit column and heaved back into cost. In the future. Maybe distant future and maybe very near future. Call it a reserve account consisting of profit on probation. It's for things you overlooked, things you can't control, or things you thought you had under control and didn't. It's not a question of whether or not you will incur these mystery expenses. You will. Everyone does. As JET would say, "Believe me."

pgriz: Eric, you're on California time, and I'm working late, preparing for a 4-day training session that I'll be giving a new crew. Reading the stuff you write makes me think that you are the humanist poet/artist whose canvas is a roof. Whatever else, you bring in the human dimension (ironically, through the medium of the internet which many consider dehumanized and impersonal). "Profit on probation" - I like that. So Kyle, "What EGG said"!

Now that Eric got me started again, there is still another category to consider after contingency. That's debt repayment. If you borrow money to fund your business, then a portion of your profits will have to go to pay down the loans. You'll be making money on the books, but the end-of-the-day checkbook will not be getting much fatter, because you'll be transferring your profits to the banker. If you're not making profits, then the situation is even worst, as your loan repayments eat up your working capital. Therefore, take on as little debt as possible, and work hard to pay off as soon as possible what ever you've borrowed.

Vaa Fakaosifolau: Profit? You got to be joking right. Well here you would be anyway, as companies pay 50% tax. We never show a profit at the end of the year, it's better to draw the profits out as drawings and only pay 33%, and even that's too high IMO. If it looks like we are making too much and will end up in a higher tax bracket we go out and buy some new equipment, like a SUV, a Ute or some new drill drivers.

We are Limited Liability Company, not a Corporation, so things might be a bit different. If you are talking about pricing the work, then you need to know what your overheads are, as MikeH explained, otherwise you might get some surprises when all the work is done and all the bills are paid.

House Of Pain: IMO, expenses are never paid out of profits because your profit can only be determined after all expenses are paid.

Salaries (including your brother and yourself) should be included in your expenses and not be considered profit.

The SEAN: I'm with Vaa on this one, I never make a profit, and if I do, I make sure I am at a loss for a few years. Uncle Sam doesn't need any more of my money. If the business is making too much money, I make more money or buy more tools. I think I had the best year in about 8 years last year, I made about $2500, which was written off because I lost money the last few.

Bobo: What I would do which is a bit easier for a per job pricing. Since you are using all subs this should work out. 1st make an excel sheet of their costs, make an excel sheet of the material for every job. At the bottom of the excel sheet for the material add in you complete overhead! If you have an accountant, whom you should even if your brother is good, you guys are roofers not accountants. Figure what this number is for your company, every company is different. Small jobs you could do somewhere around 45-50% onto the final number, on a larger job 25-35% and you should be fine. This only works with subs and only works with residential. There are other spreadsheets that can be made for commercial and having your own employees, at this point I don't believe you are doing that though. I talk to a lot of guys who have no accountant for the most part and they always seem to be the typical do-it-yourselfers with everything else and they also seem to tell me they never make any money. What a surprise our accountant is in the office about once or twice a month

Twill59: Use a mythical # to get started. Say 10%, which would be $70,000. After paying yourself say $30,000 salary and all of the bills for the year, on Dec. 30th, you are showing, and you have $70,000 left. 10% of the gross. (Most of us would be dipping into that $70 G through out the year paid out as dividends). That'd be OK, huh?

Anyway, now you can choose to take what you want, or need, for your self. And re-invest what you need into the business.

Oh, and don't forget to pay the taxes on the profit too! If you took it all, and ended up w/ $100,000 that would be about 14% net. Every 1% would be $7,000----- in your pocket, or not. I can say that pricing for profit makes life a lot easier.

Twill59: Oops. Let me back up a step here. Do not consider your base salary as profit throughout the year. It should be figured into the O/H. At the end of the year, if I am not mistaken, you can calculate into your net amount. But as profit, not really. It is payment for doing a "job" (managing, installing, whatever) that you would otherwise pay someone else to do.

Bobo: What I find is most guys don't know their TRUE overhead, which would be paying you, your brother, salary, secretaries, trucks, maintenance. material, shop, insurance. etc. I am sure you will find when you figure your true overhead onto all material etc. your price is going to be wayyy higher then it is now. IE: I figured a job the other day our overhead on the job was 3,000. Well I am sure we are bidding against guys who don't know true overhead. And therefore the price will be a fraction, to do it correctly and not go broke like most roofing companies do, this is the only way, but you will see your jobs drop off I am sure once you are way higher then the next guy.... its not all about volume it is all about making money that is why you go to work everyday. You will also see the more volume you do the more overhead you will have. Since you are using subs your set up time for a 20 sq. job is the same for a 100 sq. job, which is good for you.

Onarooftop: Yeah, the goal is to get to all employees as soon as I can. I have to get a handle and total understanding of this in order to not be in the process of slowly sinking the ship, while standing on deck looking into the horizon with a smile thinking I am doing great. When in reality I am not, because this last year I was just looking at sales. I am starting to understand that I need to be looking at other things. The other things like profit margin, overhead, loan debt, etc., seem to be a lot more of a priority, and something I have to track at all times.

pgriz: There are two other aspects that affect profit, and amount of effort you put in to get it.

Bigger is not always better. The more people you hire (as employees or subs), the more you have to supervise and the more things can go wrong. If you're working with thin margins to start with because you are in a very competitive area, then you're doing a lot of work for little gain. As many of us oldsters, (hey I coined a word! I think), already know, you size up (or down) to the level where your income is good or adequate and your headaches are manageable.

It's better to take on five $2,000 jobs and a 50% gross margin, than several jobs at $100,000 and get only 1% margin. And this means you have to look for the kind of work where the competition is lower and you can ask for higher prices. This usually is work that is more rewarding as well.

Another aspect not discussed is that you need adequate profit to cushion your inevitable jobs-gone-bad. It happens to the best of us. So you suck it up, and go fix the problem(s) under the terms of your warranty. Your workers still need to be paid, the materials still cost money, and you can't expect any offsetting revenue from your customer. That's where your pockets need to be deep enough to pay for the repair without pushing you into insolvency. Your ability to go and correct the inevitable mistakes will set you apart from much of your competition and should allow you to charge higher rates (and therefore, better margins).

wywoody: What everybody else said. Starting out trying to address it on a yearly basis can be daunting. It really boils down to individual jobs, that is where you have to make your adjustment. Going for volume, volume, volume might earn you more stature with your suppliers, but unless that is your goal, think profit, profit, profit. Try to not get so tied up on big, c

Miscreant: "I sunk all the profits back into the business."

That's what stuck out for me. When people say that, they mean that their overhead is higher than they thought. Or it's a way to be in denial about how much they really made.

I used to say that. I thought when I bought a compressor or a new computer that I was sinking profits back in the business, when in truth these were things I was going to have to buy again someday. Next year I would have to buy other stuff. I didn't have the perspective to see that this is the normal cost of being in business.

The other thing to remember that taxes are inevitable. If you make money then you will have to pay taxes.

CIAK: Kyle, You are thinking in the right direction. First thing I would do now is not let anybody else run the books. I know it is your brother. If it is your business then keep an eye on the BEANS It is admirable to trust however not very wise in a business sense. Make it a priority to have your brother held responsible. Gross sales can hypnotize you into oblivion. My gross sales have dropped so dramatically it is impossible to explain, However my lifestyle and profit margin has increased as dramatically in the opposite direction. As your figuring it out A word of advice!!!! "DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYES OFF THE BEANS"!!!!!!! Set up a system now while you still can that the bean counter is held responsible and you have access to and an explanation as to why. I have to many Black and Blue diplomas on my wall not to give you this type of advice.

dougger222: I'm incorporated and pay myself a salary each year. I cut myself a check on the 15'th of each month and the IRS and MN takes their cut from the business account. On most jobs my homeowners pay for the materials but last year I had to pay for $27K of materials from my business account. Since my business income was over $275K I had to have a balance sheet for the year. With checks written and cashed early in Jan of this year my ending 07 business account balance was $-10. My business had a balance of loans of $15K at the end of the year. If I would have had a bunch of money in the account at years end it would have been a read flag to the IRS. Don't know were profit would go into play but I know I paid taxes on an income of $130K. On typical $10K labor jobs I pay out around $2,500 in labor. Back when I just did new roofs working alone would usually bring in around $100K and pay taxes on $60K.

If I spent as much time as I do running my business and if all the profit was just put back into the business by the end of the year I'd find another trade. I know a few business owners who show no profit at the end of the year and figure their either doing something wrong or waiting for an IRS audit.

Ed The Roofer: There is a lot of good information provided from everybody, but you have to concentrate on your own business model.

Higher Volume with lower percentages or lower volume with higher percentages?

I would strongly, strongly suggest you check out this website for some relatively inexpensive books and other guides on how to figure out how a business should be run.

http://www.markupandprofit.com/

Now, bookmark that site and read what he has to say and learn from it and customize things to your business.

Darryl: OART, Looky here how much do you want to make, this based on competition you can say I'm making 50% profit, but I don't have any business.

I take the cost of sales which include commissions labor materials and every thing that you need to do to complete the job, now take all of your fixed cost (Overhead including office salaries) subtract that from COS and that will equal pre-taxed profit. I always increase our overhead so it is to my benefit such as medical, auto, insurances expense account, now the more fixed expense that you have the less tax you will pay, benefits paid to you are taxable but depending what type of entity that you have, will give you to tax rates that you will pay, I would rather give it to my employees and my self than the Government, what ever you do just make sure you pay your due.

bobo: Kyle, Everyone on here is talking about the higher volume larger low profit jobs. What we do is we price accordingly for a Homeowner we do not go lower that is where we make the bulk of our money as per shingles. In the larger low profit let's say apartments complexes well you price those lower to get them. If you are using all subs this works, if not then no it doesn't really work to well. If you were to ask your average homeowner how our pricing is they would say mid-high every time. If you ask the property managers they would say fair (which mean competitive, which means lower, in those cases) It is a hard distinction to make from job to job. Like I said before your set up time and paper work is the same for 100 sq. and for 20 sq. if using subs and dumpsters. The thing about doing small jobs and making more money is damn true. We did repairs the other day that took 2 guys 10 hrs. Made more on that then most guys do on a house

bobby: What Sean does may work for him but believe me you need to show your making money, when you go to buy a house or a loan they will want the past 3 years taxes And they KNOW what's going on they may not even consider deprecation They want to see some good numbers.

The SEAN: Bobby, that's where your personal numbers come into play. Why would you pay taxes on your personal money and then pay MORE taxes on your company's money?????

Your mortgage company doesn't care how much money your business makes, they only care how much YOU make.

dougger222: My goal has been to run one really good high quality crew which means very few call backs. Waiting for a year that I can run the one crew full time 5 days a week. Last year did good but still didn't work for about 4 months out of the year. Last year was about 95% insurance work, which is good.

BentNail: What's your job profitability? I meet with business owners every day that are unsure of their profitability at a company or job level. They "think" they are making money because they have a few dollars in their checking account. Having money in your checking account doesn't mean you are profitable. It might mean you haven't paid all the bills yet, so you have a little cash. Cash and profit are two different concepts. If you aren't profitable, you won't have longevity in your business. It doesn't matter the size of your business or the industry. Profitability is something you should be monitoring on a regular monthly basis. No business is too small or too large to do job costing. Such an excuse is your way of not holding yourself accountable to managing your business wisely. Failing to plan is a plan for failure.

So what do I mean by job costing? You should know how much you make and spend on each job. Expenditures should be tracked for those direct labor and material costs to each job. In addition, you should also be tracking overhead costs and allocating them to your various jobs as applicable. There is always going to be some overhead that is considered general overhead. Though often times too many dollars are thrown into general overhead, when they could easily be tracked to specific jobs. If you don't know your exact income and expenses for each job and your overall business, then how can you know you are making a profit?

QuickBooks has easy-to-use features that allow you to do job costing for time and materials. So don't worry about having to track it all manually. Rely on tools to help you run your business more efficiently and effectively. Are you curious how you are doing with job costing measurements? Here are some quick and easy questions to gauge your job costing performance: 1. Do I track each customer's revenue information through a detailed invoice? 2. Do I have a way of breaking down my direct job materials cost by customer? 3. Do I associate all time spent to each job accurately with actual dollar amounts? 4. Do I have access to reports to monitor profitability on each job in a timely manner? 5. Do I have a way to trend the fluctuations in job profitability from job to job, month to month, etc? If you answered "NO" to any of these, then it's time for you to take an objective look at your financial goals. It's time for you to implement a job costing mechanism to help you answer "YES" to these questions. How can you track your profitability and long-term growth plans if you don't have detail at a job level? Here are some quick and easy ways to utilize QuickBooks effectively to help you with your job costing process: 1. Set up the QuickBooks Item list so that you'll have both an expense and an income aspect to each of the items. This will allow you to track your costs and your income; therefore, providing you profit by item. 2. Record your sales through the invoicing or sales receipt process. This will record the income aspects of the items. 3. As you purchase the product or service items, make sure that you utilize the Items tab so that it will record to the cost to the appropriate item. In addition, make sure to assign your customer/job information to each line item so that you'll have the costs associated to the appropriate customer/job for job costing. 4. Utilize the time tracking mechanism in QuickBooks so that you and your employees can track their time by item and customer/job. No dollar value is associated with this time until you actually pay the employees within QuickBooks. 5. QuickBooks has pre-formatted reports that you can access to have job costing information right at your fingertips. These are found under the Reporting menu and the Jobs/Time/Mileage option. 6. QuickBooks has the ability to provide reports for any time period you . This will allow you to have a variety of detail over the growth of your business and to produce trending reports. You can modify the report as needed to meet your needs. One additional important aspect is that you have a good accounting professional on your team of resources. They will be able to help you understand what these reports are telling you in terms that you can use. Reports alone don't provide value if you don't understand them. So it is key that you understand the reporting information and how you can utilize that information to assist you in decision-making as you grow your business profitably. It's all about how you set-up your accounting/bookkeeping software package and how you use it! What justification can you give for not knowing job costs within your business? None! Challenge yourself today to become more adept at running a financially savvy business through job costing.

Alba: Industry's net profit average is about 8%. The gross profit from each job varies from 10% to 50%. What you want to take home from the field profit and what you want to invest in the company depends on your business plan and ambition. On $700K in sales typically you make more money if you have twenty $35K jobs than two $350K ones.

GAK: Hi Bent Nail, Welcome to the board! You post some good points. The only problem that I have is that for me QB is a lot more work than I have time to devote to it. I use it for basic bookkeeping and payroll, etc. but when it comes to entering in items and a lot of other info that I don't have to have, I don't have the time to bother with it. I can track the important things and do job costing with simple Excel spreadsheets that are a lot easier to personalize. QB is a great program but a bit complicated for this "roofer".

Really depends on the job.

Bump

clover83: "Chuck: Totally know what you mean. I've seen hundreds of laborers and "roofers" that can't hack it. We normally have two grunts, but only one for the last couple years. I hired a guy today who did pretty well, and if not there was another guy that came to our door over the weekend who seemed promising."

Thumbs Up! :)

Lefty: I agree. I would never have done it if they were illegal, but most of the waiters at this restaurant can barely take orders.

Chuck: Totally know what you mean. I've seen hundreds of laborers and "roofers" that can't hack it. We normally have two grunts, but only one for the last couple years. I hired a guy today who did pretty well, and if not there was another guy that came to our door over the weekend who seemed promising.

It was just a stressful time not to have a low man on the job to play the part. I'm much more relaxed these days :) (3 weeks later)

Tom, I guess this is the second time in a short period that I hit a sore spot with ya. Didn't mean to hit either one. The guy I referred to above was a grizzly bear of a man. I later found out that he had came in second place in the Indiana state tough man contest the year before he came to work with us. We were working a hail storm in Louisville, Kentucky. That was a rare isolated incident ( which is what made it stand out in my mind after reading clovers reply ) and I already stated that I was expecting him to make 2-4 trips not just one. He became quite a roofers helper and worked with us for about 18 months. That was nearly 20 years ago when I was still a sub-contractor for other companies.

Lefty Said: 100% American to me is anyone who has the right paperwork.

Mike H Said: Aint no mexicans working for me. 100% american work force with healthcare, retirement plan, good bonuses.

Chuck Said: My grandmother on my moms side was half Cherokee Indian and my Mom 1/4. That makes me 1/8 so I guess Im working 12.5% Native American and 87.5% non Native American give or take a little. :unsure:

clover, hang in there buddy. I experienced what you described many times. One time in particular comes to mind. I had went through about 5 wanna bes like you have when I hired the 6th one. On his first day we were around in the back yard where we had just finished tearing off the backside of the house when the new guy asked me if there was anything I needed him to do. All the material was around in the front yard. I said yes, go around front and bring me 4 rolls of felt expecting him to make 2-4 trips but when he came around the corner of the house with all 4 rolls at once, I knew he was the one.

Chuck,

I know you did not mean to but you just hit a sore spot with me.

I hope you thanked him for bringing the 4 rolls at the same time but than told him, next time make two trips as I know a lot of roofers that when age crept up they had back issues and could not enjoy life to the fullest in the golden years.

This sort of thing is like promoting a contest for a job, guys over do, some go out on Workmans Comp.

The best man would not have asked a question he simply would have started bringing the needed rolls over at a good but fair pace. :)

My grandmother on my mom's side was half Cherokee Indian and my Mom 1/4. That makes me 1/8 so I guess I'm working 12.5% Native American and 87.5% non Native American give or take a little. :unsure:

clover, hang in there buddy. I experienced what you described many times. One time in particular comes to mind. I had went through about 5 wanna be's like you have when I hired the 6th one. On his first day we were around in the back yard where we had just finished tearing off the backside of the house when the new guy asked me if there was anything I needed him to do. All the material was around in the front yard. I said yes, go around front and bring me 4 rolls of felt expecting him to make 2-4 trips but when he came around the corner of the house with all 4 rolls at once, I knew he was the one.

100% American to me is anyone who has the right paperwork.

100% local work force here as well. Although about two weeks ago, I was tempted to change this...

I was sitting at a mexican restaurant after a couple weeks of that June heat that really thumps you out of nowhere. Our grunt had quit us due to GF issues, and the next six we hired all seemed like good prospects. Only one lasted more than a day, only two others lasted all day. Puking by 10am and whatknot. It was brutal and was taking a toll on the rest of us.

So I'm sitting at the mexican restaurant thinking....well you know what I was thinking. Glad I didn't though.

Mike H Said: Aint no mexicans working for me. 100% american work force with healthcare, retirement plan, good bonuses.

I used to whine about the state of the biz, then decided to change my luck.

Same here. No one gets exploited. Although some think they are being exploited.

Sorry double post

natty Said:

Or rather... what a fool.

You missed my point. Communism and Capitalism are similar in respect that they both exploit labor. Communism doesnt work because it removes individual initiative. Capitalism fails without govt provided safety nets. America is at the point that even the safety nets are failing and has become dependent on cheap foreign labor. I have spent 40 years on the roof- maybe my brains are fried- but it has given me a lot of time to think. Knee-jerk reactionism gets us no where. I fight for a lot of things and one of them is freedom for ALL- not just the few at the top.

As I said many years back your ads for help should read, Start at the Top and work your way down. :)

Ain't no mexicans working for me. 100% american work force with healthcare, retirement plan, good bonuses.

I used to whine about the state of the biz, then decided to change my luck.