Buffalo and Jacksonville – More Than Just a Football Playoff Game

How StealthBond® (Jacksonville) and Yeti winner Jeff Sappelt (die-hard Buffalo fan) connected right before the big game.

By Karen L. Edwards, RCS Editor.

When I speak with RCS contest winners I usually start out by asking them about their business and how they got into roofing. The conversation evolves from there and I never know where it’s headed but something unique and interesting always seems to come out and this month was no different.

Meet Jeff Sappelt of Sappelt Roofing & Repair located in North Carolina. He is the winner of the December StealthBond® Yeti Rambler giveaway. He’s originally from Buffalo, New York and an avid fan of the Buffalo Bills. In fact, his parents still live there, just a few houses down from the Bills’ stadium and Jeff is a season-ticket holder.

He traveled to visit his son in Orlando and was hoping to get some tickets to the Bills – Jaguars playoff game in Jacksonville. When he saw a call on his phone coming from a Jacksonville, Florida phone number, he thought it was about the tickets to the game. To his surprise it was Jacksonville-based StealthBond® calling with the news that he was the winner of the Yeti Rambler.

So, while his Bills didn’t beat the Jaguars, he doesn’t hold it against StealthBond® and looks forward to using his prize when he’s out on the job. Speaking of the job, I did ask him how he got into roofing, which he has been doing for 42 years.

Jeff told me that he was washing dishes at a restaurant and some guys from a roofing company would come in each morning for breakfast since one of their employees was dating one of the waitresses. One morning, one of the roofing company’s supervisors asked Jeff what he was making ($1.25/hour) and if he’d like to make $6 per hour as a roofer.

He started the next day at 5:30 a.m. on his 18^th birthday and has been roofing ever since. Jeff went to college to become a certified public accountant and worked on roofs each summer to earn tuition money. After he graduated from college, he never sought work as an accountant. He decided instead to hang up his roofing shingle and see how it went.

Forty-two years later and twenty years after moving his family and business from Buffalo to North Carolina, his four sons are involved in the business now too - two of them full time and the other two on a part-time basis. One of his sons was in the Marines and was gone for a while but works with him now that he is home. He says that his business is truly a family business and they focus on one job at a time, solving problems and providing repairs.

Jeff’s says he’s been a long-time member of the RoofersCoffeeShop.com family having used the site since it started. He enjoys the photos, the articles and looking through the classifieds. The Week-in-Review emails keep him informed about what’s happening in the industry.

Congrats to Jeff on winning the drawing for November! If you have not entered yet, visit the contest page now and sign up. To learn more about StealthBond® Systems, the first concealed adhesive installation system for metal roofing, visit www.stealthbond.com.